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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29271696">Solved Game</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boots17/pseuds/Boots17'>Boots17</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Season/Series 12, But you can have a little comfort as a treat, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mostly hurt, Prison, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Reid is a Mess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:27:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>47,253</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29271696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boots17/pseuds/Boots17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Solved game: a game whose outcome can be correctly predicted from any position, assuming that the game is played perfectly.</p><p>A season 12 AU in which Mr. Scratch dies a little too early, Reid accepts the plea deal, and Cat Adams plays a very long game. Years later, the two finally get their rematch.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Catherine "Cat" Adams &amp; Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss &amp; Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau &amp; Spencer Reid, Luke Alvez &amp; Spencer Reid, Luke Alvez/Penelope Garcia, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Penelope Garcia &amp; Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid &amp; David Rossi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Luke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>There's some fudging of the season twelve timeline here, and Tara's cognitive interview never unveils the "it was a woman" revelation. I choose to also pretend like the season thirteen episode where Kristy Simmons is held hostage doesn't unfold in this universe, because I am only interested in causing excessive trauma to Spencer Reid and I don't want to put her through too much.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Luke's just returning home from picking up Roxy after a few nights of dog-sitting by his neighbour when he remembers to check his mailbox. There are bills, coupons to tempt him to a burger place that he probably already frequents too often, and a letter postmarked from Florence, Colorado. This one has arrived on a quick turnaround. There have been times in the past where he'd wait a few months without a response, but as of late the correspondence had hit some consistent momentum and he could expect to see a reply every two weeks or so.</p><p>When he'd gotten his first call from Reid in Colorado, he hadn't known what to say. He'd fumbled for a topic and found one sitting on his coffee table.</p><p>
  <em>"Reid, you read a lot," he'd offered.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Yes."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"My new neighbour has been watching Roxy for me and she lent me this Russian book she's a big fan of, and I am really having a tough time with it. Do you think you could help me out?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"If you're thinking of trying to use my opinions on literature to hit on women, I can promise you from extensive personal experience that you're not going to be very successful. I've only pulled it off once and she was a pretty rare person."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That was not the intent.  "No, she's in her sixties! But she's nice and a little lonely, and I want to be able to talk to her about something she likes."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Russian lit? I bet that Emily would have some opinions too. What's the book?" It had been the most life he'd heard in Reid's voice since the start of the call.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It's by," he'd almost been sure that he had the right pronunciation and didn't look like a dumbass, "Dostoevsky."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There had been a silence on the end of the line just long enough to make Luke wonder if they'd been disconnected.</em>
</p><p><em>"Luke, man," Reid gave an incredulous laugh, "I'm not really interested in going over </em>Crime and Punishment<em>. I'm sort of dealing with the subject full-time right now."</em></p><p><em>"Oh! No! No, it's </em>the Brothers Karamazov<em>?"</em></p><p>
  <em>Another pause.</em>
</p><p><em>"Well, at least it isn't </em>the House of the Dead<em>." There was something wry in his tone.</em></p><p>
  <em>"I...don't know what that means."</em>
</p><p><em>"It's another one of his novels, about a Siberian prison camp. Luke, in </em>the Brothers Karamazov <em>one of the brothers gets arrested for a murder he doesn't commit."</em></p><p>
  <em>"Shit. Reid-"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"...it's an amazing novel. A lot of people would argue that it's the benchmark of modern literature. It's fine, Luke. How far into it are you?"</em>
</p><p>Luke had gotten about six pages into the first chapter on their flight home from a case in Washington state before giving up and talking to Rossi about his new barbecue instead. Reid had told him to send him a letter with his thoughts on the first chapter, and Luke had accidentally started a book club. They'd finished <em>the</em> <em>Brothers Karamazov </em>early last year and were now in the midst of Gabrielle Garcia Marquez's <em>One Hundred Years of Solitude. </em>Reid had taken the joke well when Luke had suggested <em>the Count of Monte Cristo</em>, though.</p><p>In all honesty, he'd expected to return the unread Dostoevsky novel to Cheryl with an apology after about a week. There wasn't much riding on it and he's more of a non-fiction type of guy. It was a way to engage with Reid and he took it because the correspondence helped mitigate his guilt just a little.</p><p>Reid never once mentions the thing that hangs over Luke's head. Based on the information from Tara's cognitive interviews with Reid, it was abundantly clear that Mr. Scratch had set him up. The modus operandi was perfectly consistent, and the man had been hellbent on destroying the BAU. This time he was extremely successful in the damage he'd caused.</p><p>Luke had been the one there when Peter Lewis had fallen. If he'd been just a little faster they might have taken him into custody and heard the confession they needed regarding Nadie Ramos' murder. If Luke could have pulled him up to safety, everything would have been entirely different. But Lewis had slipped away and so had Reid's best chance to have his name cleared. Without the possibility of exonerating testimony and in the face of enough evidence to see a murder conviction if the case went to trial, Fiona had convinced Reid to accept the DA's second offer and plead guilty to manslaughter.</p><p>Luke will never quite be able to let it go. He wishes he could release it the way that Scratch's hand had simply lost its hold on the ledge. Let it drop like that maniac went down to the pavement, taking Reid along with him.</p><p>Emily was still recovering from her time with Scratch, but the rest of the team had all been present at the post-indictment arraignment. Reid had seemed so tired and defeated when he'd entered his plea. The judge had dispensed with the sentencing then and there, and it was done. Reid had given them a long and hopeless last look as he was being taken into custody. Then he was simply gone. Penelope had held it together just long enough for him to be led out of sight before she was sobbing in Luke's arms. It had taken hours before she'd exhausted her tears.</p><p>Luke enjoys the letters that Reid sends and should probably be paying tuition for them. He isn't as dryly academic as Luke had worried, though. He offers interesting clarifications and context, and occasionally goes off on his characteristic wild tangents. When they run their course, they end up circling back to the subject at hand to paint everything in unexpected new light. Reid also genuinely wants Luke's opinions. He's just as interested in how Luke interprets and values the reading as he is in reflecting on more scholastic interpretations of the text. Luke knows that the man is a genius but continues to be stunned by the breadth of his knowledge, especially when he considers the deprivation of Reid's circumstances these days. When he'd checked what translation Reid was using for Dostoevsky, he'd learned that he wasn't actually reading the book at all. He was quoting everything from memory and could reference three different versions by heart. He could have translated the Russian himself if Luke wanted to send him a paperback copy.</p><p>Roxy butts her head against his thigh with a whine when he flops down on the living room couch. She's got her favourite squeaky toy and a list of demands for him now that he's finally home. He tosses the letter on the coffee table for the evening. His girl has missed him and she deserves his full attention. He'll get to Reid a little later.</p><p> </p><p>They'd returned from their case in Oregon on a Tuesday, so he's back in Quantico the next day with a sense of resentment for the time difference from the west coast and with a tall stack of paperwork waiting for him. If the job was a television show, it'd cut out the days on end where they type up reports and go over procedure.</p><p>It isn't a bad day. He takes a long coffee break to visit Penelope. She pretends not to enjoy his company and they build a ridiculous speculative profile around Anderson's new girlfriend. Garcia's at the top of her enthusiasm today, which warms him to see. It's been slowly growing a little thinner over the past several years. Luke gets the sense that Penelope is preparing for her time with the FBI to end in the not-too-distant future. He will be sad when she leaves but wonders if he might find an opportunity there if he can work up the courage. There'd be no fraternization rules to worry about anymore.</p><p>At lunch, there's free leftover pizza in the breakroom from someone's birthday, and Tara tells him a story about how in college she'd photocopied two-for-one slice coupons from a local pizzeria and lived off of cheese and pepperoni for a semester before they caught on. In the afternoon he makes decent headway with the section of the report he's been working on. He's feeling good about wrapping it up before he heads off for the day when everything goes totally sideways.</p><p>Emily calls Matt into her office and closes the door. That door stays open unless there's serious and sensitive matters to discuss. Luke shoots a glance at JJ, who frowns back at him. Matt's voice isn't quite loud enough to really make out from the bullpen, but the volume is enough to indicate trouble. Something is very wrong.</p><p>It isn't long before Emily walks Matt out with a hand on his tensed shoulder. He's pale and looking frantic. He makes a momentary stop at his desk for his jacket without offering so much as a glance at anyone, and then he's off down the hallway to the elevators. Emily calls them into the roundtable room.</p><p>Luke slides into his seat with apprehension, meeting JJ's worried eyes again. Reddy seems overwhelmed; he's only a month into his new role at the BAU and it is clear to him that something unprecedented is happening here.</p><p>Emily looks a little shaken herself, but quickly slips into the professional. "I just received a call from the Federal Correctional Institute in Hazelton, West Virginia. Cat Adams has been demanding to speak to us since before noon. The corrections officers weren't giving in at first, but she spoke with the warden a little over an hour ago. Adams gave her Matt's address. They tipped off the police, who checked in on the Simmons' home. Right now we're looking at an abduction scenario. The girls and the baby were left behind locked in a bathroom--they're safe, and with Kristy's mother right now. Kristy and the boys were taken."</p><p>"Cat Adams?" Luke is unfamiliar.</p><p>"Aka Miss .45, the Black Widow Killer. An international hitwoman, over 200 confirmed kills. Garcia's sending you the files for review. The team arrested her as a part of a sting operation on an assassin network in January 2016. Reid posed as a man looking to have his wife killed. She figured it out, but he was able to convince her that he'd located her father. She'd been searching for him for years in order to kill him. It was a fabrication but it worked to trap her."</p><p>"And what connection does she have to Matt?"</p><p>"She doesn't. Matt says he's heard of her, but it's unclear how she'd have any details about him. She's refusing to talk further to the correctional staff and says she'll only speak to the BAU.</p><p>Reddy and Lewis, I want you to speak with the Simmons girls. We need any information we can get from them regarding the abduction. This is delicate. Tara, as much as we could use your insight when we talk to Adams, you're probably the most likely one of us to be able to get useful details from the children. I need Rossi and JJ with me for their prior experience with her." She eyes Luke across the table.  "You're coming to West Virginia. Wheels up in fifteen."</p><p>It's a short flight from Quantico to the small airstrip in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. Luke calls Cheryl to emergency dog-sit for him again, then reviews the Adams' file. It's a chilling one. That's a hell of a body count, and her skill at manipulation seems unparalleled. There's a note about two separate assassinations where she actually just talked the targets into killing themselves. The file describes her as a genius when it comes to planning, and the success she'd had in her career confirms it. It's obvious that the abduction is a piece of a bigger picture.</p><p>"She likes to play games," says JJ. "She made Spence tell her sensitive personal information in order to win her compliance, and used the game to misdirect him while a bomb was hidden under the building."</p><p>"She'll have been working on something," Rossi offers.  "Nothing will be spur of the moment here, it'll be meticulous. She's very competent at improvising on the go, but this will have been planned for some time."</p><p>"The kidnapping is just the first move, then." It sounds to Luke like they're walking into some sort of larger scenario here. Even in a cage, a mind as sharp as the one Cat Adams has is a dangerous weapon.</p><p>"She might know about Reid." Emily's expression goes tight. "She'll have fun with that if she does. Be prepared for her to use it to upset us."</p><p> </p><p>It's well after six when they get to the prison colloquially known as Misery Mountain. It has the same unwelcoming aura as every other penitentiary he's ever visited. There are the ubiquitous squat, utilitarian buildings and vacant spaces with clear lines of sight, encased by high fencing and lit harshly in the dimming evening. There's a medium security men's unit on the grounds and the Bureau of Prison's proud newest addition to their facilities: the women's secure unit. It houses the most dangerous women in the federal system.</p><p>The warden greets them as soon as they arrive. She walks them to the interrogation room where Cat Adams is waiting, explaining that Cat had a history of violent behavior near the start of her incarceration but that since her transfer to Hazelton she's been a model prisoner for the past three years. She tutors with the GED program and is held in high regard by her fellow inmates. The warden has had to caution guards for being friendly with her, but never in an inappropriate capacity that would entail an official reprimand. She leaves them to it after agreeing to send Garcia a list of names of all staff contacts that Adams could have, as well as files on the inmates currently on her block.</p><p>The interrogation room is equipped with a one-way mirror, and he and Emily leave Rossi and JJ to the opposite side of it. The unfamiliar team members might pique Adams' curiosity while frustrating her expectations, and as a misandrist she'll likely be excited by the possibility of a man to manipulate. Emily will take lead and he'll look masculine, handsome and stupid. Maybe she'll take the bait.</p><p>Cat Adams is small and dark-haired. She could be considered pretty, but there's something disturbingly flat about her eyes.  She gives them an enormous smile when they enter the room.</p><p>"You're here! I've been waiting <em>all day</em>."</p><p>Prentiss is curt with the introductions.  "Hi Cat. We've never met. This is Supervisory Special Agent Luke Alvez, and I'm Emily Prentiss, Unit Chief of the BAU."</p><p>"Absolute pleasure. This is a different beefy guy than I met last time." She narrows her eyes. "Lots of personnel changes at the Bureau?"</p><p>Emily nods. "We're here to talk to you about the abduction of Kristy, Jake and David Simmons today. You provided information that alerted the police to their absence."</p><p>"Yep. I did it. Not personally, but I am blessed with so many wonderful friends in this world."</p><p>"Let's talk about it. Tell me about your friends, and what the Simmons family has to do with you."</p><p>"Your co-worker's wife and boys are fine, but the situation is a little time-sensitive so I'm going to cut to the chase. I don't want to talk to you. Not even you, cupcake." She winks at Luke.</p><p>"You just told us you've spent all day waiting for us, Cat. Why the about-face?"</p><p>"I want to talk to Dr. Reid again." She says it likes it's the most obvious conclusion in the world.</p><p>The degree that Emily stiffens is almost imperceptible.  "He's no longer employed by the FBI."</p><p>"I would certainly hope not, after his behaviour. I get the news, even if the Bureau did their best to sweep it under the rug. He sounds like he's <em>way</em> more fun than my first impression of him. Doing speedballs and getting into car chases? Wild."  She shoots Emily a sly grin.  "And a murder too. Real party. Wish we'd gotten to know each other in that context, I think we'd really have hit it off."</p><p>Emily tries to redirect her attention.  "I've got Agents Rossi and Jareau present if you'd prefer to speak to either of them. They'll be familiar from the day of your arrest."</p><p>"No. I want to talk to Spencer Reid." Adams crosses her arms with all the attitude of a moody teenager.</p><p>"He's currently serving a sentence in a federal prison, Cat. You can't talk to him."</p><p>"We have so much in common right now. <em>He's</em> a convicted killer in a federal prison, <em>I'm</em> a convicted killer in a federal prison. I just feel like we'd really be able to connect." Her tone is playful, but her body language is confrontational.  She's drawing a line in the sand.</p><p>"It isn't possible."</p><p>"Here's the thing. My friends are waiting for a call from me and if they don't hear back by tomorrow evening, Matt Simmons is a widower with only three children."  The look she gives them is intended to be sincere.  It's doubtful that she has the emotional capacity for it. "I promise you that I will make that phone call once I've talked to Dr. Reid." </p><p>Emily frowns. Luke is purely decorative at the moment and waits for her to make a decision.</p><p>"I can see if it's possible to arrange a call between the two of you," Emily concedes. "He might not be interested, though, since this isn't his job anymore."</p><p>This is an understatement. Reid does groundskeeping as his work assignment at the prison these days, and gets paid about two dollars a day for it.</p><p>Cat finds the offer totally unsatisfactory.  "No. That's not going to do it. What's going to happen is that you're going to get him brought here."  She taps on the table.  "You're not going to see him before he sees me, and nobody is going to tell him where he's headed or why. I'll know if you cheat. I want it to be a surprise. We're going to have a real heart-to-heart, and then I'll call my friends."</p><p>"How do I know you won't make us jump through a whole different set of hoops once I get Spencer here?"</p><p>"I promise?" The sharp little smile accompanying her words is strangely reminiscent of steel bear trap.</p><p>"It isn't possible, Cat."</p><p>"That's too bad. My condolences to Mr. Simmons. I was careful to leave him the girls, though. I'm sure the boys are lovely but you just never know what they'll turn into when they grow up." Her mocking consolation is replaced by vindicative pleasure in an instant.  "Certainly not in this case."</p><p>Emily assesses Cat without expression.</p><p>"Alright, we're done.  Based on your behaviour today, I imagine your time here is going to become more unpleasant for the foreseeable future."</p><p>Adams shrugs it off.  "Well, I'll be comforted by the fact that Dr. Reid is somewhere finding it unpleasant too. Thanks for swinging by!"</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. JJ</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Player Two has entered the game.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>JJ should have been expecting this from her.</p><p>Spence had played the previous game with Cat. She'd been able to hurt him and she'd enjoyed it thoroughly, and then he'd cheated. Adams had lost everything over it, and now she's looking for a rematch. If they play into her demands, she'll have another twisted scenario waiting for him. This time the gameboard doesn't really seem set in his favour.</p><p>The lives of two little boys and their mother are at stake, though. She imagines how Will would feel. If it were her boys and her husband's life on the line and all it took to save them was having a stranger flown in from Colorado to sit in a room and have a conversation, there was no question what she'd choose. How will Matt possibly forgive them if they don't try? How upset will Reid be with them if they blindside him with this?</p><p>The call from Tara and Reddy had provided details but no answers. Two armed white women that the children didn't recognize. Forensics are scouring the house, but the women didn't leave anything behind other than the zip ties they'd used to cuff the girls. They'd been well-organized and waiting inside when Kristy had returned from picking the children up after school. The security system had been disarmed in a way that indicated some degree of expertise, and Kristy had been too startled to put up a struggle. Tara and Reddy are busy with the local PD trying to interview neighbours and review footage from security cameras in the area but have yet to come across any big breaks. Tara said that Matt was holding it together for the sake of his girls, but the stress was bearing down on him.</p><p>Emily is actually considering it. Nobody is going to tell her she shouldn't, because this is Matt they're talking about. Henry and Jake had gotten along like a house on fire last summer when Matt had invited the team over for a backyard barbecue. The man's entire world revolves around his family. JJ and Matt are the only two in the BAU with that sort of life, and she relates to him easily because of it. They're all too close to this to just back down.</p><p>JJ watches as Emily squares her shoulders and takes a decisive inhale. She dials the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, offers her credentials, and makes it clear how urgently she needs to speak to the warden of the facility's maximum security penitentiary.</p><p>Emily describes the hostage situation clinically and authoritatively to the warden. He listens, but voices his concerns over the speakerphone.</p><p>"Getting transportation arranged on a JPATS flight will take a couple of days to organize. I'm sure you could expedite the process and get something arranged with Con Air for tomorrow, but you're looking at two hours of driving and six in the air between facilities, minimum. You're going to be waiting a while."</p><p>"Putting him on a JPATS flight doesn't fit our time constraints," Emily explains firmly.  "We need him headed to the airport immediately. I'll contact the US Marshal Service and have him escorted on a commercial flight tonight."</p><p>"The inmate has a history of behavioral issues. The US Marshal Service is more than capable of handling it, but I don't know how happy the public will be with a convict on their flight. I will defer to your judgement, of course, but you have to understand that this is unusual and will drum up some negative attention."</p><p>Emily's head gives an almost imperceptible little shake at the idea of Reid causing trouble. JJ's been on a thousand flights with him. He's cheated at cards and pulled a few pranks on Morgan. The biggest risk to the public is that when he falls asleep on someone's shoulder, there's a very slim possibility that he'll drool on them.</p><p>"I take complete responsibility for anything that happens once he leaves your walls. Please get him ready for transportation. I'll have the flight details forwarded to you and will follow up with logistics from the Marshal Service as soon as I have them."</p><p>They get their confirmation from the warden and Emily rapidly hammers out details of the urgent operation with the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System. There's a US Marshal currently on-call in Colorado Springs that they agree to divert onto the duty immediately. The situation feels unreal. She'll be seeing Reid again, tomorrow.</p><p>Penelope is the only one of the current team who has been able to visit him. Fiona had been the one to deliver the news of that whole catastrophe to Emily. The Bureau of Prisons had chosen to place him in the general population under a false identity instead of assigning him to protective custody. It was a maddening, impossible follow-up to the nightmare at Millburn Correctional Facility before his arraignment.  The prison was working to ensure that he'd be kept away from anyone he had an arrest history with and claimed that the general population was actually a better fit; that the people he'd put away almost always ended up in secure custody. He'd be more easily recognizable there.</p><p>It still makes her feels crazy, years later.  Even if he'd be recognized there, wasn't it supposed to be a <em>secure</em> unit? The Bureau of Prisons was unyielding in the decision but asserted that they would review the case if Reid's safety was threatened.</p><p>Fiona had explained to Emily that since they were trying to protect his identity, it wasn't safe to have active agents visiting him. Their jobs put them in the public sphere and sometimes landed them on the news. Rossi was a best-selling author and JJ had been the damn media liaison for years. It would be a liability to Reid's safety. At worst it would blow his cover, but it could also make him look like a snitch.  The outcome would likely be the same.</p><p>When Emily had gently laid the news out to them from across the roundtable, the gravity of not being able to visit him felt like the drop of an unexpected rollercoaster. She'd thought that the sky had already fallen. They'd taken him so far away, and now he'd have to be alone? Penelope, with her background role out of the public eye, was the only one of them whose name had made it onto the visitation list.</p><p>Garcia has taken six visits to Colorado, two of them with Morgan. After every trip, Garcia would come home a little deflated but with a story to tell. She'd feed them updates about his haircuts and the unexpected new baby biceps that Derek had commented on with paternal pride as Reid threw an exaggerated grimace across the table at him. At girl's night, she told them how she'd started to call him Junior G-man, realized mid-sentence and ended up referring to him as her "junior...felon." He'd laughed very hard, but in a way that had made her feel like she might cry. One time, he told off Morgan very firmly for calling him Pretty Boy. She said that his smile was always worth the trip, and that despite what they showed on TV she was actually able to give him a big hug at the start and end of every visit.</p><p>JJ doesn't let Penelope see how the jealousy eats at her every time she leaves for Colorado. She tries just to be happy that Reid is able to sit across from a friend.</p><p>"Garcia, please send us any records you can get on Reid--Ben Williamson," Emily amends, using the pseudonym the Bureau of Prisons had booked him in under. "Medical, psychological, disciplinary, administrative. We need to know how he's doing to see how he's going to handle this."</p><p>Penelope transfers Reid's record over from USP Florence, uncharacteristically subdued. JJ empathizes. Any case that involves delving into the personal details of a teammate has always felt like a violation, and this is a uniquely unpleasant scenario.</p><p>"I thought maybe I'd got the wrong Ben Williamson. They're his, though," Penelope offers dispiritedly over the line.</p><p>The disciplinary record is shocking. From the very start of his incarceration there is a long trail of fights, followed by punitive stays in the secure housing unit. She struggles to reconcile the information with the man. Spencer Reid is gentle, almost to a fault. He'd choose conversation with an unsub over conflict nearly every time, even if it put him at great personal risk. She's hardly ever seen Spence clench a fist, and has been a cringing witness to his performance practicing takedowns in training classes. He'd probably hurt himself throwing a punch.</p><p>The poisoning he'd committed at Millburn stands as a single horrifying outlier. He was trapped and terrified, and he'd done something desperate to stay alive.  JJ's not willing to factor it into any assessment of Spencer Reid.  She simply loves him too much and knows him too well.</p><p>The files shed harsh light on a history of steady phone calls that suddenly become sporadic, long stints where she has received frequent letters and not heard his voice. She had tried not to question it in the past, guilty over how hard it is to reach her at home with the lifestyle that comes with their job. Spence spent years sending letters to his mom, so she tries not to let the mode of communication worry her. Henry loves the pages he receives nearly as much as the calls anyway. Spencer draws strange and charmingly childish pictures and writes accompanying clever little bedtime stories that she reads to the boys. He never says much of significance about himself in the letters.</p><p>It is clear in the file that things are at their worst in the wake of Diana's death. A stressor, familiar in their line of work. He fails a random drug test for opiates about a month out from the date of her passing. Gets caught with Suboxone another two months later. Not long after he is released from SHU for that offense, there is a red-flagged violation. The details provided in the incident report are so sparse as to be suspicious.  There was a violent altercation in a bathroom, and Reid was the aggressor. The aftermath sets her reeling: seven months in administrative detention. The severity of the reprisal indicates something very serious. She knows enough about solitary confinement to be extremely concerned for his mental health.</p><p>Mercifully, the list ends shortly after the incident. He'd managed to somehow flood his cell while in administrative segregation, and once he was back in gen pop he'd been in a minor scuffle and started a single serious fight. Ridiculously, the note in the file indicates that it happened in a conflict resolution class. While the de-escalation is a relief, it cannot quite tilt the world back up from its new sideways position. He'd worked so hard all those years to move past the Hankel case and he'd lost the fight against his addiction again. He's been in so much trouble and has said absolutely nothing about it to her.</p><p>He's had three cellmates. A Paul Herzog for the first five months, who comes up often as one of the parties involved in the disciplinary citations.  There's a man named Lincoln Talbot who he was with for the nine months after that, before ad seg.  He's been bunking with Lyndon Wicks for the past two years. The file helpfully notes that Lyndon goes by the moniker 'T-Rex.'</p><p>The medical records have their own troublesome surprises. He'd made an uncle in Utah into his emergency medical contact. She's only heard Spence speak about the man twice in all the time she's known him. Reid had been in the hospital ward for over a week about five months into his sentence after a beating. Eleven months ago he'd been sent for urgent care treatment in Cañon City for serious lacerations to the arms and torso. Twice in the file there's a broken fifth metacarpal. Boxer's fracture: a classic injury from landing a punch incorrectly. Over the years there's a sprained wrist, an ear infection, an orbital fracture and some stitches as well.</p><p>The records of mental health treatment are more limited. There's an intake report noting his mother's schizophrenia and a past history of drug abuse. He chooses to attend group counseling sessions for addicts regularly after he's caught with the Suboxone, when he's not in SHU or ad seg. Five months into his time in administrative segregation there's an evaluation that diagnoses him with generalized anxiety and does absolutely to nothing to treat it. Once out of ad seg, he has repeatedly enrolled himself in a series of anger management workshops and has taken the same twelve-week course for cognitive behavioral therapy four times. She's certain he could teach it at the level of a postdoctoral seminar and can't imagine he's learned a single new thing from attending, even the first time.</p><p>"Oh, Jesus," says Emily, reviewing her own copy of the files. "Garcia, have you sent these to Tara? I need her thoughts--I didn't have any idea. We can't push him too far if he's not capable right now."</p><p>"One step ahead of you," Penelope confirms. "Keep me in the loop, okay? And give him all my love when you see him."</p><p>Emily departs to the hallway to call Tara. JJ sits and stares vacantly at the disciplinary transcript until she feels Rossi's eyes on her.</p><p>"It's understandable, you know. Reid's smart enough to know that being smart can't keep him out of trouble. There's not a lot of reasoned discussion in a prison, JJ," he says softly.  "If someone pushes you in a place like that, you have to fight back or you'll get walked all over. You can't just roll over or let it slide. It's ugly to see it listed like this, but it honestly might be good news given the situation. He's been trying."</p><p>"Well then should I be worried that the fighting basically stops? And the drugs, Rossi? I thought he was past this. He was doing so well, for years."</p><p>Rossi runs a hand through his hair. "He messed up. We don't have the details yet. He was caught with Suboxone. It'd be contraband in a penitentiary but it's actually used in treating opiate addiction, like methadone. He could have already been trying to quit, and he's been doing counselling for it. We can talk to the kid about it, later."</p><p>From his quiet end of the table, Luke rubs at his eyes. He's been poring over Cat Adam's list of contacts in Hazelton. "I've got nothing. We need more information."</p><p>Emily returns from the hallway with an update from Tara and snacks from the vending machine. Cheetos for JJ, because Emily is a sort of angel and knows that they're her favourite.</p><p>"We'll see it through. Tara and I are both concerned, but we don't have many alternatives. We should head to the hotel and try to get some rest. It's going to be eight hours until he arrives, and I need you sharp for this."</p><p> </p><p>JJ doesn't sleep well, and time dilates in the waiting. They are up early just to drink watery coffee from styrofoam cups and watch the clock tick. After all the urgency of the previous day, the stillness of the morning is worse. JJ tries to hold down her growing anxiety for the Simmons family, for whatever trick Cat Adams intends to play, and for finally getting to see her friend again. The wait is physical and excruciating.</p><p>JJ wonders if it has felt the same for Spence, all this time. The expanse of nearly four years yawns open in a painful way she has done her best to avoid thinking about. As hard as she tries to maintain a connection, she has been busy with living and he has been trapped away, waiting. They have made idle conversation on the phone where she has not talked about work and he has not talked about prison, and have found themselves with little to say. It has hurt, the way she wants to be there for him and yet finds herself grappling for words. She has put him on speakerphone and listened him talk softly to Henry about sharks, dinosaurs, and cloud formations. She has missed him so much.</p><p>She wasn't there when he called after Diana died. They'd been swept up in a set of serial arsons in New Mexico and Will had been the one to answer. Spencer had walked him through funeral arrangements and a variety of other logistical concerns with the detachment of someone reciting a step-by-step guide in a book, thanked Will for the time and then disappeared off the face of the earth for two months. He refused to discuss it at all when he started calling again. Said he wasn't in the right place for it, as though he could just put grief aside in a doggy-bag at the back of his fridge for later. Then the calls had stopped again for months on end and the letters had increased.</p><p>Behind the one-way mirror, Cat Adams is brought into the room by a corrections officer. There's a phone on the steel table this morning, and two seats waiting. She gives them a big smile as she checks herself over in the mirror, then settles down and relaxes facing the door, uncuffed. It doesn't take long for her to grow impatient. Psychopaths are so easily bored.</p><p>"She's going to antagonize him," Emily says. "She'll mock him over being in the same position that she is, and she'll try to goad out a reaction. Any wound she finds she'll dig into, and she will absolutely go for the throat about Diana. That was a subject she focused on last time. Reid's capacity to tolerate it is unknown here." She looks uneasy about what she has to say next.  "Tara thinks he's likely to be more volatile; incarceration tends to have a negative effect on impulse control. His disciplinary record seems to confirm it. We might have to get him out of there very quickly if the situation becomes too flammable, and she's going to do her absolute best to ignite it."</p><p>"He's spent time in solitary confinement," Luke offers. "Even if it wasn't all that recently, it'll probably mean increased anxiety and paranoia. She'll use that to disorient him."</p><p>"He'll be sleep-deprived too." JJ will have that in common with him today. "I doubt he got much rest on the plane. He doesn't know what's happening and he'll be stressed from it."</p><p>It is a dismal summary of a man at a complete disadvantage, headed without warning into a dangerous circumstance. JJ feels very cruel.</p><p>There's a call from the security gate to announce the transport van's arrival, and her heart takes up new residence in her throat. She walks a pointless circle around the room before settling in front of the one-way mirror. To her left, Emily picks a fingernail ragged. At girl's night several months ago, Penelope had drunkenly cooed over how their badass boss had overcome her lifelong nervous habit while chasing her with lurid green nail polish. Luke shifts from foot to foot, while Rossi is made out of stone. He doesn't want to be playing into this game either, but Matt is waiting in DC and the clock is ticking.</p><p>Finally, there's the sound of footsteps approaching down the hallway, paired with the ringing echo of chains. The door swings wide. Framed for a moment in the space, a shackled man in an orange jumpsuit blinks at Cat Adams. The US Marshal at his elbow guides him impatiently inside.</p><p>"Oh," says Spencer Reid. "New circle of hell?"</p><p>He is so utterly familiar. He is also foreign, like the three years and nine month span of his incarceration in Colorado wasn't just time, but an entirely different universe. He has a beard now--a bit scraggly, but still fuller than she would have previously believed him capable of growing. He is heavier and broader, and it is as disconcerting as seeing Michael in the hand-me-downs that Henry has outgrown. Time has been escaping them. Spencer's cautious and curious expression is one she recognizes from a decade of familiarity, but there are new lines to his face that make him strange. He is older and tired.  JJ feels like she has returned home to find it robbed, the furniture upended. Nothing is in the right place anymore. There are faded black converse on his feet (and she will remember to mail him a new pair when this is done) but his grey socks match.</p><p>"Hey handsome." Cat beams at Spence as the officer escorts him towards the vacant seat opposite her at the table. "Lose the restraints," she directs the marshal.</p><p>He frowns at the demand, then at Reid. Uncuffs him, unchains the binds locking his arms tight to his waist. He scowls deeper at Reid's ankles and points an admonishing finger at his face.</p><p>"If you try to kick me I will tase you."</p><p>Reid nods and the marshal drops to a knee to unlock the leg irons. He rises and leans into Spencer's personal space in an aggressive way she knows must make him deeply uncomfortable. Uncharacteristically, he does not move away; he simply gazes at the far wall with a mild expression.</p><p>"Pull any shit in here," the marshal jabs a finger into his prisoner's chest, "and I will make sure you regret it."</p><p>Spence nods again and watches side-eyed as the officer makes his exit. He drops to the chair with a sigh as the door clicks shut, massaging his wrists.</p><p>"Man. That guy sucks."</p><p>"Yeah, I get the impression that he doesn't like you much." Cat assesses him smugly over a long pause, taking him in. "So...how's it going?"</p><p>Reid huffs out the approximation of a laugh as he stretches wide, cracking his spine. "Oh, you know. Going."</p><p>The moment is too casual and JJ <em>hates</em> it. They sit there like equals, Cat in her blue uniform and him in that violent orange. He has, she knows, spent a great deal of time in the perpetual company of criminals. It must feel normal to him by now. His body language is almost relaxed, though his gaze on Cat is as sharp as ever.</p><p>"So, uh." He raps his knuckles once on the table. "What's happening here right now?"</p><p>Cat flings her arms out with the enthusiasm of a good friend at a surprise party. "I framed you for murder!"</p><p>It is a lie, of course. She's brought him here to play with his head and, desperate, they have facilitated it. For Matt, she reminds herself yet again.</p><p>Spencer hums. "No, that's not it. Manslaughter, by the way."</p><p>"Why not?"</p><p>"Well, you don't look much like Peter Lewis and he's dead. Even if there was any truth to your claim, I'd be talking to my lawyer. I wouldn't be here."</p><p>"You don't think your friends at the Bureau would bring you to me if it would help you?"</p><p>The question makes Spence look tired.  "I don't think there's any line item in the budget for aiding a disgraced former colleague who pled guilty to a felony, no. That case is closed. Not really their line of work, even if they wanted to help. What terrible thing have you done, exactly?"</p><p>"You're very suspicious," Adams says innocently.</p><p>"I just got hauled overnight on a commercial flight to get here, so time's obviously of the essence. That was a new and uniquely humiliating experience, by the way. People staring, pointing phones. Two kids cried just looking at me. Some guy kicked the back of my seat the whole flight. That marshal had a very extensive list of reasons he'd tase me and a pretty lengthy one for how I might get shot too. What did you do?"</p><p>He's not talking with his hands. He has always gestured when he speaks, fingers grasping like they could hold abstract concepts if he reached hard enough. They sit on the table now, motionless.</p><p>"I'd think you'd be pretty used to humiliation by now, mister. Bend over and cough for the cavity search, right? Or maybe more bending over than that."</p><p>"That's very funny," he says, unsmiling. He gives her an expectant look and waits.</p><p>"Ugh, <em>fine</em>. I have some friends babysitting a few people for me, and I promised the feds that the hostages might be alright if you were brought here for a chat with me." Her smile is conniving.  "I'm really not lying about setting you up, though. I just didn't anticipate you taking the plea. I had a whole big thing planned that I ended up throwing out because of it.  I was a bit annoyed, honestly."</p><p>"Are they people I know?"</p><p>"Nope! One degree of separation."</p><p>"Well, I'm here." Spence extends his arms wide. "You can gloat, make some more jokes. Rub a little salt in the wounds. Are they going to be alright?"</p><p>"That," Cat leans back in her seat and levels him with a giddy little smile, "really depends. We're going to play a game."</p><p>He makes a face that reminds her of Henry when she explained that she had to clean the gravel out of his road rash. "You know, I was actually having a pretty good week--"</p><p>"I framed you for manslaughter," she interrupts him. "First ground rule: if you leave this room or anyone else comes in, it ends. No prizes. The game is that I know a little secret about you. I'm going to ask you questions and you'll have to figure out where I'm leading you based on your own answers. Just like last time, you have to be entirely honest with me." The smile drops momentarily.  "But this time, no cheating. You guess what I know correctly and the people my friends are looking after get to go home. You guess wrong and they really don't, but I'll give you the evidence you need to get out of prison."</p><p>He tilts his head, frowning dismissively. There is a new little furrow to his brow. "This would be a really well-designed game if you weren't completely full of shit, sure. No matter what I do, I'd lose. Very nice."</p><p>"Oh, you're such a pessimist! The glass is half full, really. If you get it right, you rise above adversity to be the clever hero one last time. If you play poorly, you still get something positive out of it for yourself. And if you're feeling selfish, you can just take what you need to go home. I imagine your friends will be pretty disappointed if you choose to just throw an airball and kill three people, though."</p><p>"I could always pretend I was trying my best to get it right and secretly tank it on purpose if I wanted to avoid that."</p><p>"Dr. Reid!" Cat gasps, mockingly appalled. She is delighted by the addendum. JJ is not; she feels cold from it. To her left, Emily crosses her arms.</p><p>Reid's nose momentarily scrunches in an achingly familiar way. Cat tilts her head at him in question.</p><p>"Haven't been called that in a long time," he offers. "I'm in gen pop under a different name."</p><p>"So you're not a doctor anymore. Are you still a genius?"</p><p>"No," he snorts. "That'd be a little conspicuous. I would've had a tough time cutting out my 'well actually' and 'did you know's, but fear for my life is a really excellent motivator. I keep a pretty tight lid on the statistics too."</p><p>"Who are you these days, then?"</p><p>He rocks his head back and forth appraisingly. Shrugs. "A monumental fuckup, I guess. I'm not exactly going to trust you with my contact info, Cat."</p><p>Cat frowns at him, all feigned sympathy for his ordeal. She leans forward, elbows on the table.</p><p>"Play a game with me, Dr. Reid."</p><p>It is an unsubtle manipulation, this affirmation of his identity.  An offer to be his old self one more time.</p><p>Spence lets out a long exhale, mouth twisting.</p><p>"Yeah, fuck it. Why not?"</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Listen.  He's doing his best. I'll explain later.</p><p>Next up is ol' Papa Pasta, who I think may be my favourite to write.  There's a trivia game and some fun revelations.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Dave</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two years ago, Dave's neighbour Hannah had adopted a retired racing greyhound. He is a perfectly absurd animal, all lanky-limbed with angular, delicate features. At first, Bowie was timid and anxious at his new surroundings. Twitchy and prone to bolting. He still hasn't ended up being the most social dog Dave knows, but over time he's come to trust Hannah and has grown more comfortable with the company of others.</p><p>After a snowfall that first winter, Hannah had called Dave over from his driveway to show him the exciting results of trying to put booties on the greyhound's slender paws. The dog had staggered and high-stepped comically, gangly limbs malfunctioning, before flopping on his side to plead up at them with gentle hazel eyes. Dave had laughed with his neighbour, then made his excuses and escaped home to a bottle of expensive scotch. Later, he'd watched out the window into Hannah's distant backyard as she let Bowie outside with bare paws. Overjoyed with freedom from the confinement of his shoes, he did what he was born for and sprinted circles around the yard so quickly that even just watching, Dave could hardly keep up. It was a sensation he was accustomed to from somewhere else, in a different time. It was like trying to keep track of synapses firing.</p><p>Dave had a terrible hangover the next day.</p><p>The first time he had met Spencer Reid, Dave had come to a rapid first impression: his coworker was an effete, neurotic weirdo. He was pretty sure that he was a drug addict on top of it. The man was a liability and a flabbergasting choice on the part of Jason Gideon. At the time, this assessment was not so much entirely inaccurate as it was utterly inadequate. Dave now realizes that he had missed all the really important things.</p><p>He has never disdained the man for his peculiarities but certainly wondered at them. He is unable to relate to Reid in a multitude of ways, but can only barely begrudge the marshmallow-soft spot he's developed for his odd and brilliant former colleague. It was a marvel to witness the gears turn in his mind and a source of fond exasperation to watch his mouth run away from him, pale hands flailing like wild birds coming to carry him away on another esoteric tangent.</p><p>If pressed, Dave will admit to occasionally falling down a wikipedia tunnel while researching for his next book, losing time in a wormhole of related pages. He cannot imagine what it would be like to have all those little links tucked away in his own skull. He'd probably also go to remember the authorship of a relevant psychology paper and end up eighty steps down the line, pondering over the feasibility of the survival of the presumably-extinct ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas. Or whatever the hell it was this time.</p><p>Spencer calls him now, sporadically. Not for long and not to eruditely babble in the way that used to make Dave's eyes roll. He gets warm but awkward greetings, little unimportant anecdotes, and thanks for the unexpected addition of cash to his commissary.</p><p>
  <em>"What do you spend it on, anyway? Still eating too much candy?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Lots of peanut butter."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave had smiled. "Trying to gain some weight, stringbean? I can't imagine the food there is too appealing."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Reid groaned. "I should be in here for crimes against the person who invented textured vegetable protein. I miss your dinner nights viscerally. I'm plagued by spaghetti dreams, Rossi."</em>
</p><p><em>"</em>Cervellone<em>, the next time you are in my house I am going to force-feed you pasta until you pass out onto your plate."</em></p><p>The peanut butter appears to have been a success. He's been working out—how goddamn <em>weird</em>. The broader musculature on the man's slim frame, the beard (only sort of patchy, he notes), the wrists that now carefully avoid certain angles: these are the strange trappings of traditional masculinity that do not belong to Spencer Reid. In another time, Dave might have found these little normalities (and that is probably the wrong wording, but he is an old man and permits himself the thought) a sign of growth in his younger friend. Now, they are infuriating. Spencer has clearly worked hard at the appearance of strength. He should never have needed to; he has always been strong.</p><p>"Give me a secret."</p><p>"Wait, am I supposed to just guess? No clues, you want me to just—"</p><p>"No, no, I just want to hear a secret from you. Anything." She looks genuinely excited for whatever he has to offer.</p><p>"I've never lost a game of Connect Four because I cheat."</p><p>Cat gives him an annoyed eye roll. "Well, of course you'd cheat. But I don't know how you could. It's like tic-tac-toe, it's too straightforward. How do you get away with it?"</p><p>"It's a solved game. Played perfectly, the person who goes first will always win on or before the forty-first move. It's simple enough that I can calculate for perfect play. I've made a lot of grown men flip over gameboards."</p><p>"You cheat at chess for dumb people. Sounds like a good way to get your nose broken where you live."</p><p>"It gets hard to fill up the time, some days. I have the feeling that you probably relate." A pointed look accompanies the statement.</p><p>She laughs. "Sounds like maybe the game's really more about seeing if you can piss people off than it is about getting four in a row. Hmm." The woman is always amused. It fails to conceal her malevolence. "Okay, another one, but juicy. Something much sexier than Milton Bradley, please."</p><p>Reid gives her a discomforted little wince and thinks it over for a moment. Dave isn't even certain that the man has anything to tell.</p><p>"Okay. Uh. When I was working on my third doctorate, sometimes at night in the library I'd fool around in the stacks with this sophomore comp sci major, Nassir Asghar. I'm not generally very interested in men but we were both horny teenagers, he was extremely self-assured, and my fear of approaching women was still totally incapacitating at the time."</p><p>Cat punches the air. "I wondered about you." Dave has too, on occasion.</p><p>Reid huffs out a little snort, lips thinned in annoyance. He's always been an intensely private person. He'll talk all day about nearly anything but himself, really. Dave does not want to witness the information being dragged out of him now. He wishes for the days when the team learned their facts from the genius as slowly as he was willing to give them up.</p><p>The pace was usually glacial. Dilaudid, migraines, secret girlfriend, his mother's illness: he avoids discussing the important things every time. Now it's relapses, prison fights and medical emergencies. At least he's stayed consistent in being an evasive idiot.</p><p>"Okay, one more. Something painful this time."</p><p>Reid bites at his lower lip for a moment. His tone and expression are flat when he speaks.</p><p>"Since you're going to ask about her anyway. My mom died when I was ten months into my sentence. She died and I was glad for the Alzheimer's. Everything's gone straight to hell because of it—what I did over it, I guess. But she'd deteriorated so quickly, to the point that she probably didn't even know where I was when she died. She hated it so much, whenever she remembered. But I was probably just away at university or off at work, to her. It would have been a typical kind of absence; I did it to her most of my life. So I was glad."</p><p>Cat almost pulls off an expression of sympathy. Spencer very nearly succeeds at the illusion of stoicism. The kid has a knack for magic tricks.</p><p>Dave, personally, doesn't think he really hides how the statement has just broken his heart a little. JJ certainly doesn't.</p><p>"Okay, I'm good on secrets for the time being. Three in a row. I'll go for one more later." There's a sly look on her face. "Question for you now: why did you kill the mouse?"</p><p>Reid blinks. "Excuse me?"</p><p>"The mouse, in the yard, in the glue trap."</p><p>Dave wonders for a moment if this is a hypothetical scenario she wants him to build into a story. Maybe there's a logic puzzle he doesn't know about, like the one with the boat and a chicken, a fox, and a bag of grain. But Reid leans back slowly in his chair, staring warily at Cat with the expression of a man who has recognized that he is in considerably dangerous proximity to a rattlesnake.</p><p>"Have you been <em>watching me</em>? How?" Usually when Reid is upset, he gets unpleasantly shrill. His emotions boil up out of him like a whistling teakettle. Right now his voice is still very soft.</p><p>Emily and JJ share a concerned look. Luke dials Garcia and asks her to cross-reference her list of people that Cat has contact with in FCI Hazelton to anyone at USP Florence.</p><p>"Answer the question, please. A whole bunch of guys are standing around in the yard, and some guy named Buzzsaw is apparently nearly in tears—"</p><p>"Killswitch."</p><p>"—some guy named <em>Killswitch</em> is nearly in tears, and they're all standing around looking at this mouse caught in a glue trap. But you come on up and you see, and you flip the trap over and step on it. Why?" She cocks her head to the side. "Do you start fires and wet the bed too?"</p><p>On the surface of the table, Reid's hands clench momentarily into fists. Open. He swallows.</p><p>"Everybody was just standing there feeling sorry for themselves over a metaphor, you know? Too on-the-nose. Meanwhile this mouse is stuck, and it's not dead but it's inevitable. Florence is in a semi-arid desert so it's too hot, and it's exposed right out in the sun. It's surrounded by all these giant apex predators just watching it and it's so stuck in the glue that it has trouble even breathing. It must have been terrified. The trap's pointlessly cruel, just like every other fucking thing, because who even cares if there are mice in the yard?"</p><p>"They carry diseases."</p><p>"Believe me when I say that I'm extremely knowledgeable about the number of rodent-borne illnesses a person can contract. Catching the literal plague has got to be the last square on my card before I finally get a bingo, though. I killed the mouse because it was kinder, Cat."</p><p>"Hey Spencie—"</p><p>"Oh, <em>fuck you</em>. Fuck the lie you're trying to sell me and the stupid metaphor—"</p><p>"—how do you like my glue trap?"</p><p>Reid has gone quite red. He takes a moment to breathe deep breaths as he stares across the table. Maybe he's counting to ten, but he's probably doing something more complex with numbers.</p><p>"Okay. Fine. This is creepy and unsettling. It seems like you've been focusing a lot of attention on me, Cat. I can't say I've thought of you at all."</p><p>Maybe you haven't, but you will." For once, she looks extremely serious when she speaks.</p><p>"You got your hands on a little detail about my life and you think you can use it to manipulate me. You'll make me believe that you've put me into this position so that I try to lose this game on purpose. Whoever's in danger dies, and then there's a big reveal that you had nothing to do with what happened in Mexico and I'm the guy who was so selfish it cost them everything, right? This is a transparently under-developed plot and it's a lot of wasted effort. I'm almost disappointed."</p><p>Cat leans in. "I know all sorts of little details. You really like the green Jolly Ranchers so you buy them from the commissary and trade the rest of the package for stamps. You get along so well with your cellmate T-Rex that I'd almost call you friends, if it weren't for the fact that you don't have any choice about who you're around all day. T-Rex spends a lot of his time fixating on how he's going to hike the whole Appalachian Trail eight years from now when he gets out. You've got an appalling amount of Bob Dylan on your mp3 player and you listen to him too much, but you always skip over <em>I Shall Be Released."</em></p><p>"The harmonica is grating," Reid protests faintly.</p><p>"Just like every other Dylan song. The real reason is that it would make you too sad, because you're such a soft, sensitive boy." She gives him an exaggerated pout along with her words. "Speaking of which, hey! When you found out your mom died, right after you finished a call about the funeral details, you picked a fight with the first guy you could, right? I guess because you wanted to go to SHU and be alone to cry about it. You've misbehaved a surprising amount. Some shocking stuff. Let's talk about that."</p><p>Reid's face is closer to being purple, now.</p><p>"You know an inmate here who knows an inmate in Colorado, right? Someone's been ear-hustling. But that doesn't explain how you could possibly know where I am or who I am now—"</p><p>"Sure, <em>Ben</em>. So, Warren Bulwer. I was really interested to see how you'd handle that situation. It wasn't the sort of nuanced approach I'd expect out of you, but it was problem-solving I guess."</p><p>It is a statement that indicates that she had intended something, not simply learned about it. Reid is so busy shakily trying to talk himself through things that he misses it. Dave isn't very used to Reid missing things that aren't social cues or literal objects that he's trying to catch.</p><p>"—so you'd need access to a CO or administration, maybe a lawyer. When it comes to the COs, I know for a fact that Hughes is dirty. The very invasive level of detail means it's someone who has to be able to get close to me. It <em>must</em> be a CO. Unless you've somehow got multiple accomplices and there's another inmate involved too. And you already do have multiple accomplices, if you have lines of communication and someone abducting people—"</p><p>"I think maybe you've gotten a little rusty, Spencie. Do you need me to hold your hand and walk you there? Put the pieces together, genius."</p><p>Reid stops talking to pinch the bridge of his nose and release a trembling exhale. The levels of stress he's been displaying are rising rapidly. Under the table, his left leg is bouncing like it might jackhammer through the floor.</p><p>"Well, if you've got someone who's in a position of power, you don't have the self-restraint to keep yourself from using it. The Bureau of Prisons wrote the Bulwer thing off as an administrative error. But it wasn't, was it? And you're trying to get me killed."</p><p>"Oh! No no no honey, I promise I don't want you dead. That's very boring. The possibility of you dying is there, sure, but I actually have a lot of confidence in you. This is all really just for fun. I give you rope and you keep on tying yourself nooses."</p><p>It's her MO, that last statement. She'd enjoyed putting her victims in highly compromising situations before finishing them off. Dave had read the case notes on one of the men she'd talked into killing himself, back when they were first trying to catch her. She'd forced him into a corner with a sequence of his own terrible decisions until it had seemed like his best, only option.</p><p>Reid doesn't seem to know how to respond to the new information. His mouth moves to form words and then swallows them. His hands tremble; he balls them into white-knuckled fists again.</p><p>"Are you mad at me? What are you thinking about?"</p><p>"Nothing," he chokes, "that would involve witnesses."</p><p>She laughs like he's told her something very charming. "Is that a threat or are you just flirting with me? I would love for you to put your money where your mouth is, either way."</p><p>Emily is about to dial Garcia again when Luke gets the call back. He puts her on speakerphone.</p><p>"Alan Dalton. It took me a minute to dig it up because he was actually a CO at the prison she was at before her transfer, not at Hazelton. He'd been one of the guards on her block for the duration of her stay at Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility. He was hired at the Florence Correctional Complex in 2017, four months after Reid arrived. Promoted to unit manager early last year."</p><p>Next to Dave, JJ looks stricken. He gives her shoulder a squeeze to offer reassurance he doesn't quite feel. Adams' capacity for manipulation is speaking volumes right now. She can convince a man to move across the country to torment a stranger, and she's been actively interfering in Spencer's life with a purpose. Based on her MO, it's one he's starting to feel pretty worried about. She's had years to play her games here.</p><p>"I said earlier that you're a pessimist, Spencie. You live like it's the Book of Job and you just expect God to rain more calamity down on your head. I guess maybe you've had so much bad luck that you can't see the difference anymore between the random bad things and the intentional ones. You don't seem to have even wondered. It makes it really easy to do terrible things to you. I bet right now you have absolutely no idea what I've done to you and what's just happened because it happened. Must make you feel a little crazy."</p><p>Reid does look a little unhinged right now. "What else have you done to me?"</p><p>"Take a guess."</p><p>"Did you get me put in gen pop?"</p><p>"In Florence? No. The second time was just perfect coincidence—hey, maybe there's another person playing games with you that I don't know about. Really, you ought to look at it as divine intervention on your part. I figured you'd end up in protective custody this time. It would have been so easy to play with your head if that had happened. All alone with nothing to do, slowly losing it. When I was done you'd have ended up making poor Diana look well-balanced in comparison—"</p><p>"Keep her name out of your fucking mouth."</p><p>"Aww, so sensitive. Guess again."</p><p>"Did you get me put in a cell with Herzog?"</p><p>"Nope. You're not very good at this. It took me a little time to get a friend in Colorado. I was able to have Herzog convinced to attend your conflict resolution class, though, which I hear was <em>very</em> funny considering your personal history. Really incredible how your actions have consequences, huh? There were some other incidents between you two that could have been broken up a little earlier too, and that was my call.</p><p>I did a couple other things. My friend had Hughes put pressure on you to help move his heroin because I know you have some real self-control issues there. It was amazing that you didn't question that one happening to you again either. Maybe it all just feels like narrative continuity in your life at this point? It must be stressful worrying that he'll let your employment history drop, or that you'll get a nice trafficking charge added to your sentence if you get caught. There was also the little thing with Wolf getting out on the yard when you were on work detail, oops. And the really big one, of course."</p><p>She's obliquely referenced Millburn now, twice. The first time he was in gen pop, and the heroin. Either she was able to get information out of someone there, or she's been involved with this for a very long time. Since the start, maybe.</p><p>Reid has the wild, wide-eyed look of a captured animal. His whole body is tensed tight, and he's getting sweaty. Dave can tell that he's convinced by the things he's hearing. It takes him a moment to get the question out.</p><p>"Cat. Did you frame me for murder?"</p><p>"It was just manslaughter, baby. I've always told you the truth. You're the only liar in this conversation."</p><p>Very suddenly, Reid is on his feet and his chair is halfway across the room. He has angled his back towards her and the one-way mirror to stand close to the wall, head in his hands. His shoulders heave with violent, desperate gasps.</p><p>"Fuck! Oh, <em>fuck</em>."</p><p>Dave does not quite know what to believe right now, but he certainly agrees with the sentiment.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>You're doing great, sweetie.</p><p>Cervellone is an Italian nickname meaning genius.</p><p>I Shall Be Released is a Bob Dylan song (also played by the Band) about a man in prison reflecting on freedom.  I wouldn't want to listen to it either, my dude.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Emily</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Emily had discovered the accidental distance learning class that Luke had enrolled in with Professor Reid (on the jet, while Rossi had a good laugh over how much homework Luke had assigned himself), she'd started borrowing the letters when he was finished writing his responses. Combined with the trickle of her own mail from Colorado, the impromptu literature course momentarily allows Reid to become a near-tangible presence in her life. There are no shy little smiles or enthusiastic gestures accompanying the words, but his brilliance goes unconstrained by walls or distance. It's not enough, but it's priceless to her anyway.</p><p>Reid asks Luke about his opinions and emotional responses regarding the chapters they cover, but he's nearly always indirect with his own. He prefers to stick to the more explanatory side of the conversation, but Emily sees through him anyway. He favours the middle Karamazov brother, Ivan. The comparison is too obvious. Born a genius, Ivan runs intellectual circles around everyone he meets from childhood onward. He's exceedingly philosophical, overly-analytical, and voraciously hungry for knowledge and experience. Ivan is troubled deeply by the problem of human suffering. In the end, he's tormented by his mistakes. At times, Reid can't quite disguise how bitterly he relates.</p><p>The knife-sharp insight and expansive length of one particular letter makes it obvious which chapter in <em>the Brothers Karamazov</em> is Reid's favourite. It's the one where Ivan, having gone mad, has a conversation with the devil. Just beyond the one-way mirror, fiction and reality are too close to colliding as Spencer hyperventilates furiously while Cat Adams observes with great satisfaction.</p><p>"Inhale. One Mississippi, two Mississippi," Cat offers to Reid's heaving back.</p><p>This is an ongoing disaster, and it feels moments from spiralling out of control. Emily needs Cat to keep talking if they're going to have any chance of getting details about the abduction. For that, Reid has to take his seat at the table and continue playing this nightmare game. He is only feet away, but she can offer no assistance as he strains beneath the weight of these new revelations. Emily can't be certain yet if they're artful manipulations or the honest truth. It seems likely that Adams is feeding him a toxic combination of both.</p><p>It's true that she's been watching Reid, and it's likely that she's been interfering with his life. The prizes in this game could be total deception, however. Kristy and the boys could already be dead, and Peter Lewis could still be the man responsible for Reid's incarceration. Cat is fixated on the lie that he tricked her with all those years ago. She's either telling nothing but the truth so she can claim the high ground, or she's using an invention of her own for the sake of revenge. Either way, she's got him wound up tight in her web now.</p><p>For all Reid's intellect and astonishing perseverance, his weakness has always centered around his heart. Spencer feels too deeply and it overwhelms him. She's seen it before with trauma and drugs, with betrayal, with grief, and in the stubborn refusal to accept his mother's diagnosis. She has never known him with anger like this before, and she is frightened for him.</p><p>He looks agonizingly trapped and must feel intimately acquainted with the sensation. The stakes of this game have suddenly shifted. If Cat is telling the truth, he could leave West Virginia with the evidence he needs to reclaim his freedom. The price for his liberty would be three human lives. He is far too good a man to throw this game, but she can only imagine how much the possibility pains him. Emily would move heaven and earth to get him out of that orange jumpsuit if she had any proof of his innocence. She would scuttle her career if it meant Director Cruz would step up to bat, and she'd drag Ambassador Prentiss with her considerable influence into the whole mess if the solution required the application of politics.</p><p>She worries that Reid may snap under all this pressure and lash out. Emily can no longer anticipate his behaviour. For as familiar as he is, she does not totally recognize the man beyond the glass. They will be forced to remove him if he gets physical. Should the potential rewards of the game prove to be true, it would be a spectacular defeat: the Simmons family destroyed and Spencer remanded to Florence. It may be the result Adams is trying to drive him towards. Emily is certain that sort of failure would break him irreparably, and knows that she will bear the responsibility of having brought him here if it does.</p><p>If Cat Adams is to be believed, she has orchestrated the loss of Reid's freedom, his identity, his sobriety, and his last remaining months with his mother. He has been caught up in circumstances designed solely for his suffering, and to great success. This current game is designed to claw at old injuries and flay open new ones. Emily aches for him and has been doing so constantly for years. Now he is right there, but she still cannot help him.</p><p>When this is over, Emily is going to make sure that Cat Adams does not see the light of the sun again. She will not have a single opportunity to twist vulnerable minds or inflict further pain. She will never whisper her poison into another human ear.</p><p>Emily finds that her feelings are running away with her. This isn't the time for her own fury or grief, as powerful as they may be. She places them back in the boxes where they belong for now, and she observes.</p><p>"Visualize yourself as a majestic mountain," Cat drones, the world's worst meditation guide. "Your thoughts and feelings are just clouds drifting by, but the mountain—"</p><p>"Oh, Jesus fuck," Reid resolves, retrieving his battered chair and depositing himself violently back into it. He's developed a very different vocabulary during his time in Colorado. "Keep going, why stop now? Ask your questions."</p><p>"Warren Bulwer. Walk me through that."</p><p>Reid runs a trembling hand through the mess of his hair as he struggles to level out his ragged breathing. The game resumes.</p><p>"We met in 2004. Serial stranglings in the Owens Valley in California, across state lines into Nevada. It was my fourth case and my first major interrogation. I was abysmal at it, but it turned out that my supervisor had expected me to be. He ended up using my awkwardness to disarm Bulwer and we got the confession."</p><p>"I remember that one," realizes JJ. "Morgan teased him for weeks."</p><p>"Where were you when you saw him again?"</p><p>"They always have us on lockdown at the end of the day when they bring in new inmates. Guys treat it like a parade when they come through. Lots of shouting and clapping, threats, territorial bullshit."</p><p>Reid is gripping the leg of the table very hard and then releasing it, rhythmically. She thinks it's a type of grounding technique. His anger is subsiding into something quieter for now. He looks tired, and like he's been that way for years.</p><p>"Did he see you?"</p><p>"No. He was completely overwhelmed. He'd been in protective custody since his sentencing and that would have been a lot to take in after twenty-three hours a day alone in a cell. I doubt he was able to focus on much of anything. He was frightened."</p><p>"How did you feel?"</p><p>"Like the Bureau of Prisons had made a mistake that was going to get me killed, Cat. Like I didn't know what the fuck I was going to do. I didn't sleep all night. Couldn't stop thinking."</p><p>"Tell me what you did."</p><p>He rubs at his face. "I skipped breakfast. Stayed in my cell until count. After count there's a ten minute move for guys to head to rec or work detail, and a complete shitshow broke out. Two of the new transfers to the block were Nuestra Familia and la eMe's shot-caller had some opinions. The COs were very occupied with trying to break it up. Bulwer was just standing in the perfect place, and he was too busy watching the fight to be paying attention to me."</p><p>"And?" Cat leans in.</p><p>He glances over at the mirror, just for a moment. The unexpected sensation of eye contact is startling, though he has only seen himself.</p><p>"And I hit him in the back of the head as hard as I could, I pulled him into the bathroom that was right there, and I kicked the shit out of him."</p><p>Cat raises a dubious eyebrow.</p><p>"I <em>really</em> kicked the shit out of him," Spencer amends. "I needed him off the block, in the hospital ward, and then to be too afraid to ever leave protective custody again."</p><p>"You kicked him right into the ICU."</p><p>This is the incident that was red-flagged on his disciplinary transcript. The one that landed him in solitary confinement for months. Despite the use of lethal force that his career with the FBI had sometimes required, it feels surreal to imagine him as the perpetrator of that kind of violence.</p><p>It is exactly what Cat must have intended when designing the scenario. She believes that all men are fundamentally like her abusive father. It would be very satisfying for her to have driven a characteristically gentle, thoughtful man into a calculated act of brutality to prove her own point. Perhaps she'd hoped that he would kill Bulwer.</p><p>"I hear he has permanent damage to his hearing in one ear," she continues. "I also hear that you almost got an assault charge."</p><p>"I have a really good lawyer. The BOP knew they'd helped cause the mess by transferring him in with me, and she was going to stir up unnecessary trouble if they pressed charges. It wasn't worth the paperwork when it's going to screw me when my release hearing comes up anyway."</p><p>Emily sends a silent offering of thanks to Fiona. A misdemeanor assault would have landed him an extra year on his sentence. Based on the severity of the attack, a felony could have seen him up to another ten. Adams would have been elated with that outcome.</p><p>"This is a crime that you're guilty for, though."</p><p>"I can adapt to being guilty, but not to being dead." His tone and expression are defiant, but his body language speaks quietly of discomfort he tries hard to conceal.</p><p>Cat smiles languidly at that. "Instead of assault and battery, you could have gone to the CO's office and submitted a cop-out form."</p><p>Her statement is mockery, given that a correctional officer in her pocket initiated the entire event. Considering that the prison's presumable administrative error with Bulwer could have cost him everything, it's unlikely that Reid had much confidence in the authorities.</p><p>"I wasn't going to gamble my life on whether Martinez had a hangover or not. If he'd been having a good enough morning to put in his best half-assed effort, I'd have been placed into protective custody for the rest of my sentence. That would've just been ad seg with a different name for almost four years, at the minimum. I'm not capable. I'd lose it. And if he hadn't had his second cup of coffee yet, I would wait while he played on his phone in the breakroom and then forgot about it until the afternoon, and just hope Bulwer didn't recognize me in the meantime and tell someone? I'd have bled to death in the yard or the cafeteria if he did. Or maybe I'd have been thrown off the tier; I saw that happen to a guy once."</p><p>Reid exists in a world of constant threats, and he relies on fear and mistrust for his continued survival. Emily understands that, having lived as Lauren Reynolds. There is the unrelenting paranoia of being caught in the lie, and the way the false identity slowly consumes you out of necessity. She felt safer the more real Lauren seemed, and being someone else made it easier for her to do things that she hated.</p><p>His identity was in danger. Perhaps when given the choice between terrible or worse, it's Ben Williamson who makes the hard decisions. She remembers thanking Spencer for being himself, once. He said it was the only person he knew how to be. Emily has no way of giving that back to him now.</p><p>"Do you feel bad about it? Be completely honest."</p><p>"Oh, I see. Publicize how I'm morally compromised. That's your thing." He gives a jerky little nod. "Even knowing how he murdered eight women, I should have been more careful with his head. But if I'm being completely honest, my tolerance for feeling badly has shifted a bit. There's a threshold it has to cross before it really registers."</p><p>"So it's like Bulwer's hearing loss, then?" She laughs, self-satisfied. "Can't blame me, you set <em>yourself</em> up for that one."</p><p>He rewards her jokes with a smile. It is a sour, snarling thing that doesn't belong on his face.</p><p>"Do you know what the secret is?"</p><p>Emily is reminded of poker games on the jet. Spencer stares at Adams for an unnerving amount of time before shaking his head.</p><p>"Okay, but remember: non-action is an action in this game. Let's talk a little about the consequences for what you did."</p><p>"Guys mostly stopped messing with me once they heard what I did to him. We weren't the only people in that bathroom, and I never gave a reason. I spend a lot less time in SHU now that I don't have to get into fights constantly."</p><p>"I'm thrilled you've found your silver lining from acting like a homicidal lunatic, but I'm talking about the seven months you did in ad seg. I've done six, and I don't have the words for that experience. How was it?"</p><p>"It was very bad." His intermittent grip on the table leg doesn't go slack this time. His hand is bloodless from the pressure he's applying.</p><p>The UN considers prolonged solitary confinement to be a form of torture, Emily knows. The federal prison system has limitations on how long it can be applied punitively, but the sky's the limit if they say it's for administrative purposes. The security of the facility supersedes human rights concerns, and some prisoners will spend their entire sentences in isolation. She's aware of the vocal criticism, but she's never bothered herself with much reflection about it in the past. Only if it's relevant to a case they're on. Emily works very hard to put monsters in little cages.</p><p>"I'm going to need a bit more. I see photocopies of your letters and you're usually very long-winded."</p><p>He's visibly disgusted by that new disclosure. "It's just a room. Six by nine feet. I could reach out from the center and touch the walls. I got an hour alone in a little dog kennel outside, but only on weekdays. A shower and clean clothes three times a week."</p><p>She stares at him until he continues.</p><p>"Guys go into ad seg thinking that they'll be fine because they're tough. Maybe they've done a few weeks in SHU before. They start going squirrelly after a bit, and then they get very upset, and then it just cracks them. Faster than people would expect. So it's always loud because there's never-ending screaming and crying and banging on doors, and it always smells because someone decided to start flinging shit. The disciplinary panel does a review every six months or so about your case, so nobody is ever sure if it will end, either."</p><p>Cat keeps waiting.</p><p>"The human brain developed to respond to constant environmental and social stimuli. Minds deprived of it show abnormal EEG patterns within days. A confined person might experience perceptual distortions, disturbed sleep cycles and extreme emotional lability, typically inclined towards despair and rage. Dissociation, mental torpor and obsessive, painful hyperfixations on the smallest of stimuli are basically inevitable. Given a psychopath's baseline for boredom, I imagine that you had an especially hard time."</p><p>He doesn't want to discuss his own experience and is retreating to the data. It's an old source of comfort for him. Spencer's greatest fears have always revolved around the condition of his mind.</p><p>Cat brushes off Reid's little dig at her alongside his attempts at evasion. "Did you lose it in there?"</p><p>"I don't—" he pauses, looking away. "I don't think I'm ever going to quite get it back."</p><p>"Oh honey. Tell me what's wrong."</p><p>He finally lets go of the table leg. His hand looks painfully stiff as he flexes it back into a fist.</p><p>"A study on mice demonstrated that a single month of isolation can cause a twenty percent decrease in their total neural volume. When they were released, their levels of stress hormones were so high it precipitated further cognitive decline. The only way they could stimulate neurogenesis was to remove their adrenal glands entirely. Social isolation leads to a decrease in the size of the hippocampus, which has effects on learning, memory, spatial awareness and impulse regulation. But the amygdala becomes hyperactive, which causes increased fight-or-flight response. Heightens aggression. There's a study that indicates correlation between isolation and rates of Alzheimer's too—the hippocampus is affected first with the disease."</p><p>He isn't talking about it directly. Uses intellectualization as a defensive tactic. This is something that has caused him an enormous amount of pain.</p><p>"Dr. Reid, are you trying to tell me that you're dumber?"</p><p>"I have trouble focusing. I overlook details. My episodic memory is still excellent, particularly around negative events, but my semantic memory is much slower. Sometimes it'll take me ten minutes to remember a fact that used to be instantaneous. It's been two years and it hasn't improved."</p><p>"You're probably too stressed. Like the mice."</p><p>She is smiling about her glue trap and Reid knows it. His breathing rate is picking up and he's flushed red again. He doesn't like the implication that he's small or helpless.</p><p>"You've got this cute little anger management problem now too, huh? I know you try very hard to keep a lid on it. Are you visualizing a stop sign right now?"</p><p>That was one of the elements in his file that Tara had focused on in particular, during their call. After ad seg, his psych file records him taking the same cognitive behavioural therapy and anger management classes over and over. Emily had assumed it was a way to reduce the conflicts that he kept getting into. Tara agreed but had reservations. She didn't seem confident that they had the whole picture yet.</p><p>He's found something broken in himself after his experience, Emily thinks, and has been desperately using the limited resources he has available to try to cope. She watches a vein throbbing in his temple and recognizes that he has been displaying enormous willpower today.</p><p>"PTSD," Luke says. "The complex kind, maybe." It fits, and Emily will find a way to get him help for it when this is over.</p><p>"It's a problem, being angry. I have to be very careful or I'll do something stupid," Reid says with resigned understanding. "Someone could use it against me."</p><p>"They certainly could." Her smile speaks volumes. "Tell me about what it was like for you in ad seg," Cat prods. "What made you mad?"</p><p>The parameters of the game mean that Reid has no option but to follow the line of questioning wherever it leads, despite his obvious reluctance.</p><p>"The man in the cell across from me was very disturbed. He should have been in a hospital. He'd scream and cry all day, all night. I'd put wet toilet paper in my ears to try to block it out. But the guy to my left would try to talk him into hurting himself, or convince him to do something stupid with the guards to get him in even more trouble."</p><p>"That must have upset you."</p><p>"I don't like people who prey on the mentally ill. We'd shout at each other."</p><p>"This is like pulling teeth, doc. You agreed to the rules. Talk about it."</p><p>The exhale Reid releases sounds like a whale breaching the ocean surface. "We would stand by our doors for hours on end and just howl at each other. All night sometimes. Until I lost my voice and tasted blood. I would get...transcendentally, out-of-body angry. I was just a vibrational frequency, you understand? We'd shout the most obscene, deranged things we could come up with. Time didn't exist, and I have a head just <em>full</em> of the awful things that people do to each other. We were very creative and there's nothing to stop you from saying anything there. I meant every word of it, too. If the guards had opened our gates...he would have killed me. He sounded like he was big. I would've tried, though."</p><p>Cat smiles pleasantly. "I hear that you flooded your cell. Tell me that story, and keep being descriptive."</p><p>Unexpectedly, Reid lets out a dry little laugh. "Sometimes the guy across from me would take his clothes and use them to clog his toilet, and he'd keep on flushing and make a flood. And I'd hear it and watch my door until the water started creeping in under it, and I'd hope that this time maybe it would just keep rising and rising, but it never did. They'd take his clothes away, but eventually he'd get them back and he'd do it again.</p><p>One time I heard him start flushing and I was compelled. I plugged my toilet with my clothes and I started flushing too. Between the two of us there was <em>a lot</em> of water before we got caught. He was overjoyed. I hadn't heard anyone that happy in a very long time. I think we really bonded. I ended up deeper than my ankles in toilet water and I laughed until I cried—I didn't even care about the germs. I got my clothes taken away and lost my hour in the yard for a couple of weeks."</p><p>"It's very sweet that you made a friend. Do you feel like this experience brought you closer to your mother?"</p><p>His face darkens. "Where are we headed here, Cat? I know you're having fun, but I'm not getting anything out of this."</p><p>Reid's right. Apart from extremely serious concerns about the state of his mental health, Cat isn't giving them anything. Emily had been hoping that she would slip up enough in conversation to let loose some information about the kidnapping, but Adams isn't interested in the subject. None of this is about them for her. The Simmons family is ancillary; this is all about Reid. She's telling at least half-truths, which means she's been obsessively fixated on him for years. He's too caught up in the midst of what's happening to move the conversation in the direction they need, and has no idea that the Simmons family are even involved.  Reid's met Matt only once, while still on the comedown from the drugging in Mexico.</p><p>Unless Cat makes a very stupid mistake, he needs to win. The odds are not stacked in Spencer's favour, especially given the new information on his psychological condition.</p><p>"We're walking through a very simple case of cause and effect, Spencie. Please try to keep up. Maybe do a little self-reflection. Let's talk about your drug problem."</p><p>He tenses up even further.</p><p>This is all designed for humiliation. Having read Spencer's letters, Adams must know how reluctant he is to discuss himself in any meaningful capacity. She is walking him down a path of the painful things he has not addressed with an audience of the people he cares for the most. She is dragging him through his hurts, his failures, and his shame. Perhaps she intends to show them that he is too hopelessly damaged to be worthy of their continued efforts. She is looking for a way to isolate him even further, and he was already among the loneliest men that Emily knew long before he took the trip to Mexico.</p><p>These are all just the mile markers to lead him to the finish line, and he is struggling. Emily is starting to wonder what Reid's secret might be, and how much it's going to cost him to reveal it if he finds the answer.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. JJ II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>She was unloading the dishwasher and considering a cup of tea when the phone rang.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You have received a call from an inmate at Florence Correctional Complex," the prerecorded message intoned. "If you choose to accept, your conversation may be monitored or recorded."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>JJ hurriedly dialed to accept. "Hey Spence," she said, aiming to keep her voice light.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"JJ, hi! I tried a couple of days ago but Will said you were in Michigan."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Just got back from the Upper Peninsula in the morning. There was so much snow, Spence. I thought Pennsylvania had it bad. It's hard to believe that people choose to live there."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Spencer proceeded to quietly give her the record for snow levels in the area (Keweenaw county, 1978-79, 390.4 inches) and describe the lake effect phenomenon, his voice soft and low on the phone. He's always worried about being overheard when he talks about subjects in too much detail now. In the past, his explanation would have made her brain go a little numb with disinterest. That evening, it felt more like standing in a warm sunbeam.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When she looked up from putting the last of the utensils away, blue eyes were peering intently into the kitchen from around the doorframe. It was time for a conversation that they'd been avoiding. It had been nearly six months since the day of his arrest and the inevitable had arrived.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Spence, Henry asked me today when you'd be back from Colorado and I told him the truth about why you're there. He'd really like to talk to you about it. I'm going to put you on speakerphone, okay?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Oh. Uh. Yeah, of course."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>'Uncle Spence?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Hey buddy! It is so nice to hear your voice."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Uncle Spence, mom says that you're in jail. That there was a huge mistake and that you won't be able to come home for years. I'm sorry. It isn't fair." Henry's voice was shaking. He'd cried when she had first told him, and the tears were starting to well up again.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Thanks Henry. It's alright, I'm fine."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Is being in jail scary?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>After he'd worn himself out from crying, Henry had asked JJ about a hundred questions that she couldn't answer. She suspected that Reid was about to undergo a thorough interrogation.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It's usually very boring. Like being grounded but much worse."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"What's the most boring thing?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Every day, multiple times a day, I have to do nothing but wait while they count everyone. Sometimes they make a mistake and have to count us all again, and it can take hours."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Do you ever get to do anything that you like?" Henry seemed doubtful that it was possible.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I like it when I make calls or get mail. Thank you for the drawing of the ankylosaur, I put it on my wall. They're my favourite."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I remember. It's not fair that they put you in there with so many bad people. They should let you come home."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Spence had paused for a moment. "Henry, it's complicated, especially because I know how hard your mom and dad work to make sure the bad guys can't hurt anyone. There are some terrible men here, but a lot of people in prison just made bad choices. You know about racism, right? And that not everybody has a mom and dad and a big house like yours. A lot of people don't start off with the same opportunities, and maybe they do badly in school and they start to get in trouble, and eventually they end up with only bad choices and they still have to make a decision. That doesn't make the decision okay, but it's important to try to understand why. Have you ever been in a situation where you only had bad choices?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Today I was told that if I didn't eat my salmon I couldn't play any X-Box." It was a new and suddenly-acquired distaste, and he'd been trying to pawn his entire fillet off on Michael's plate.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Spencer huffed out a laugh into the receiver. "Well, some people don't eat their salmon and they go to jail."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"That's not true."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You're right, the judges usually let first-time offenders off with a warning, but—"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the background of the call, an alarm began to shrill insistently.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Is there a fire?" Henry asked.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"No, something else. I have to go. Eat your salmon, Henry! Make good choices, and give your mom a hug for me. I love you."</em>
</p><p>When JJ considers how much of a mistake it was to bring Spence here, the term <em>zugzwang</em> makes an unwelcome intrusion into her thoughts. The decision was inescapable and there had been no time for second-guessing. They were compelled to move into a disadvantaged position. It was an error that now seems impossible to remedy, and she can only hope he'll be forgiving about having been escorted into the room across from her without warning or consent.</p><p>JJ had known that it would be hard to see him again. She'd known that his experiences would change him. She had seen it slowly unfolding even in the brief duration of his stay at Millburn. An invisible burden had been weighing down hard on his thin shoulders, and a sharp hostility had begun to take up occupancy in his big doe eyes whenever they weren't focused on her. There had been so much loss in his voice and too much stubble on his sweet face.</p><p>Knowing that change was an inevitability doesn't make it any easier to watch while Cat Adams probes at the distressing transformations her efforts have wrought in him. It doesn't make JJ hurt any less at the sight of him so badly wounded. This is no different than seeing him bruised and seizing on a monitor in the Hankel house. JJ's skills as a profiler have been rendered worthless here. She's just a useless spectator again, and he's on his own.</p><p>JJ wants to hold his hand so tightly that she loses feeling in her fingers. She wants to tidy his wild hair and tell him to shave off the stupid beard. She'd like a time machine back to the jet she blew up so that she could watch him nod off against Hotch's surprisingly yielding shoulder, safe and whole in the company of the friends he's been stolen from.</p><p>Instead, she can only stand behind a mirror as this uneven rematch continues to play out. He's a disaster, and Cat Adams has done this to him. JJ is very glad that they had to leave their guns at the security entrance.</p><p>Adams is reclining with an arm thrown lazily across the back of her chair. "Give me one of your little NA meeting introductions. You go to a lot of them."</p><p>"I'm not roleplaying," Spencer says unequivocally.</p><p>"I'm sorry, did you think you had some dignity that you were still hanging onto?" She gestures up and down scornfully at him and his jumpsuit. "Play the game."</p><p>He nods slowly, furious. "Hi. My name is Ben, and I'm an addict."</p><p>"Give me details, Ben."</p><p>"I'm addicted to heroin, and I've been clean for twelve weeks."</p><p>"You're really struggling with this. Mom didn't raise you to be a quitter?"</p><p>Spencer's jaw is clenched tight. His grinding teeth might even be audible at Cat's proximity. Each little reference to Diana is eating away at him, and she's not going to stop.</p><p>"Have you been shooting it?"</p><p>He nods, his long fingers tearing at a loose thread on the cuff of his sleeve.</p><p>Cat tuts at him. "I've seen the rigs that cons come up with when they can't get needles. You're going to get hepatitis. That's gross."</p><p>"I don't share and I'm very particular about cleanliness."</p><p>"Yeah, it sounds like you have everything totally under control. The present tense there makes you seem really committed to your sobriety, too."</p><p>JJ is terrified by the fact that he's still floundering. She'd hoped that he was staying clean after being caught with the Suboxone, but he's nowhere close. He's taking horrible risks—as dangerous as the Dilaudid was, at least he had a clear idea of the dosage he was on. He has no way of knowing with heroin; it could be cut with anything. He could have overdosed on fentanyl and her last memory of him would have been in handcuffs as he was ushered out of a courtroom.</p><p>She's never had the straight facts about how prolonged his struggle with Dilaudid had been. The team had all been too afraid of the repercussions for his career to confront him, and he has always hated asking for help about personal matters. She had approached it sideways and tried her best to offer conversation and friendship, but she'd also been completely caught up in her burgeoning relationship with Will at the time. She and the rest of the team had watched and worried at a distance as he'd dealt with it alone, and it had felt too awkward to ask him to relive it once it was obvious that he'd moved forward. It's something she'll always regret.</p><p>"I hear one of your old cellmates OD'd." Cat says. "He was a bad influence, but you stayed clean when you lived with him. You were a good boy until mommy died, right?"</p><p>"Right," he grits.</p><p>"God, you are so predictable. Why don't you stop?"</p><p>"Every week I have to play a role in the trafficking of a class I scheduled substance. It's very difficult for me to have that sort of proximity and access to heroin, Cat."</p><p>"Tell me about that. What does Hughes make you do?"</p><p>"I just have to move it from one place to another. Part of my job on yard duty is changing out garbage bins. The package comes into the workshop with supply shipments. I take it with the trash bags and I make sure that it ends up under a particular bin that's in the cut. No line of sight from the security cameras," he clarifies. "Someone else deals with it from there."</p><p>Cat's face lights up like a child. "I love that you made a midlife career change to pursue something really meaningful. Are you nervous every time you do it?"</p><p>"Hughes is always on duty, so the probability of a pat-down from anyone else is low. He's good with the theatrics. Unless someone figures him out or he throws me under the bus, the risk is manageable."</p><p>There is nothing manageable at all about Spencer Reid's current situation, as far as JJ can tell. He's living on a tightrope and coordination isn't high on the list of his noteworthy traits.</p><p>"Never thought that you were going to get caught?"</p><p>"Once. Some cowboy got on me before Hughes did."</p><p>"How'd that work out?"</p><p>"It turns out that sleight of hand is a really useful skill in prison, and I've had lots of time to practice. It's why Hughes said he picked me in the first place." He blows out a hard exhale at the memory. "I did a magic trick. Anyone else probably would have seen through me, but he was new enough I was able to misdirect him. He was too aggressive and it gave him tunnel vision."</p><p>"If you keep practicing, maybe you'll Houdini your way right out of there."  She allows herself a self-congratulatory chuckle.  "Are you using those skills to skim the heroin or do you buy it?"</p><p>"I get paid off with a cut of it. I avoid buying and I never borrow."</p><p>"Why don't you just say no?" Cat shakes her head in stern disappointment.</p><p>He looks up from the sleeve he's been mangling and shoots her an irate glare. "What do you want? My whole personal history? Maybe the big explanation where I describe how addiction is a complex biopsychosocial disorder and I give you some relapse statistics? You probably already know it all since you've put me in this position."</p><p>"I'm not particularly interested in how you might frame your excuses. I didn't force you to use anything." She pauses. "Well, my friend did in Mexico, but she did that ages ago. Isn't one of your twelve steps to make a fearless moral inventory of yourself?"</p><p>That's the first detail that Adams has dropped about the death of Nadie Ramos. A woman was involved. It's basically nothing, but it's a slip.</p><p>"You just want me to say I'm weak and I love getting high? I am, I do. I'm under a little bit of stress, Cat, and there's a lot of time to fill."</p><p>"I thought getting any honest self-assessment out of you would take a lot longer. You have a ways to go, but it's a start."</p><p>Adams is very good at what she does, and she has enough access to ammunition that her job here is easy. She's going to pick apart everything that he keeps hidden and every mistake she's cornered him into making. At the end of this, he'll have no secrets left to offer. She is going to set him free, crushed beyond repair by defeat and disgrace. Out of unmitigated shame at his failure, he might even decide not to take a guess and choose to return to Colorado instead. Spencer was right when he said that this was a game that was designed only for him to lose.</p><p>"You should give heroin a try," he snaps across the table. "Ruin your own life for a change."</p><p>Cat scoffs. "One of us still has a mind worth preserving, and I know how unpleasant your little lifestyle is. How are the withdrawals, genius?"</p><p>"All the puking really makes the hours fly by when you're in SHU. Otherwise, when I get my cut I trade it for Suboxone." At her stare, he carries on. "It's like methadone. It alleviates withdrawal—"</p><p>"Yeah, I know all about Suboxone. You're not just being blackmailed anymore, you're moving it for your own benefit. You're a drug dealer. Between this and the assault, I'm really concerned about your behaviour. I don't think the rehabilitation process is working on you at all."</p><p>Spence looks like he's considering adding her murder to the list. His gaze is so cutting that he might as well be dissecting her then and there. It is a piercing, assessing thing.</p><p>She smiles in response. "You know, now might be a great time to consider making any guess you want. Take your prize and run."</p><p>"I'm not—"</p><p>"If that makes you feel too guilty, you can let the clock run down. Spend another couple of years in Florence to reflect on your personal shortcomings, and when you're out you can pull your best David Copperfield and do a disappearing act on the friends you've failed so completely."</p><p>JJ's never seen so much hate on Spencer's face.</p><p>"This isn't your responsibility," Cat continues. "It isn't your job and you aren't getting paid. It doesn't matter what the FBI want or what they think about you. You have no obligation here. We can just sit until the cutoff time and talk about our book club. I read ahead on <em>One Hundred Years of Solitude</em> and the ending was very sad. Everything was predestined for complete ruin. It reminds me of you."</p><p>Another prolonged staring contest follows that statement. After a painful duration of silence, Cat strikes up a little drumroll on the table with her fingers. Reid's got an indecipherable flat expression on his face and a white-knuckled grasp on the edge of the table. JJ has no idea what he's thinking about or trying to find in his opponent, but she clearly enjoys the opportunity to toy with him. The beat picks up speed.</p><p>It dies suddenly when Spence reaches across the table and forcefully flattens her palms against the table with his own. "More questions," he concludes grimly.</p><p>She slips her hands out from under his. "Tell me about T-Rex."</p><p>"Six-foot-seven, built like a fridge. Funny, tells great stories. I thought he was a compulsive liar at first, but he's just made very unique life choices. Loves to hear himself talk, so he doesn't mind that I don't say much. He's tidy. Unobtrusive for a man who takes up so much space."</p><p>"What's he in for?"</p><p>'Drug trafficking."</p><p>"No wonder you get along so well," Cat sneers. "Do you give him your heroin if you aren't using it?"</p><p>"No, he's an uppers man. I give it to another guy in the Nevada car, Jon-Jon. It's important to have friends."</p><p>JJ knows that he's not a social anthropologist merely observing life in prison. He's been unwillingly submerged in it. It still leaves her deeply uncomfortable to hear casual discussion of the moral concessions he makes to survive. She refuses to blame him for them, yet can't control the jolts of dismay that shoot through her with every new admission.</p><p>"You're a little manipulator." Cat doesn't react to the expression Spence makes at her bold hypocrisy. "Before T-Rex, you were with Talbot."</p><p>"Wasn't a fan. He was loud and messy. Talked a lot of trash and was afraid to take showers because of it. The cell constantly stank like armpits, and he'd spit his toothpaste into the sink."</p><p>JJ isn't sure what the issue is with the toothpaste, but Cat winces sympathetically at him. "I'd have put an end to that behaviour pretty quickly. I'm mostly interested in your first cellmate, though. What's the profile on Paul, Agent Reid?"</p><p>"Mean motherfucker."</p><p>Spence looks like he knew that this was the conversational destination he was being led to. When he was first guessing how she'd been meddling in his life, one of his questions had been about sharing a cell with Paul Herzog. JJ remembers his name from the administrative files as someone Reid had been in near-continual conflict with.</p><p>"I can see why you were once considered an expert in your field."</p><p>"Do you know what the dark triad is?" At the shake of Cat's head, he traces the shape of a triangle in the air with his hands. "It's a continuum of three personality traits that strongly indicate criminality. Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. There's been discussion that it should be a tetrad with sadism in the fourth position, but there's some categorical overlap that's under debate. You're the class valedictorian on the scale either way—there's no one else quite like you. Herzog was an honours student."</p><p>The acknowledgement that she's unparalleled makes Cat preen. "How did you like living with the kind of person you've studied so much?"</p><p>The things JJ has seen dealing with psychopaths sometimes makes it hard to sleep at night. She's never had to worry about sharing a bunk bed with one in a space the size of a bathroom.</p><p>"He wasn't a serial killer and he wasn't as smart as you, at least, but he was a very dangerous man."</p><p>"Tell me about him."</p><p>"I'd say that in childhood he was frequently abused by his father. He found an outlet for his rage and a source of paternal guidance through racist organizations, where his antisocial personality disorder was actively valued because those traits are useful in specific contexts. They encouraged his aggression and lack of remorse and used his boldness and limited inhibition to their advantage. It landed him a lifetime of weapons charges, but that only fed his narcissism because prison gave him plenty of avenues to achieve dominance through violence and intimidation. He was a little too proud and independent to commit fully to any gangs, but kept close affiliation with a lot of terrifying people. Aryan Brotherhood and DWB, mostly."</p><p>"Fun roommate."</p><p>"The situation was very delicate." He's working hard to maintain a neutral expression.</p><p>"He made your life hell."</p><p>"Yes. He was medicated for bipolar disorder but I don't think it made much of a difference regarding his volatility. It was one of his least problematic issues." He watches her very carefully.</p><p>Spencer has never been a physically assertive man, and she's always fretted about what an easy target he'd make among convicts. There's nothing about him that shouts alpha male. Even with his incredible mind working in his favour, JJ had known that he was bound to face violence.</p><p>"How did you handle it?"</p><p>"Well, I got my ass kicked a lot. The worst thing would have been to let him get bored. He found my struggling very entertaining and I wasn't inclined towards the alternative."</p><p>Cat sits silent at that, grinning at him. It throws Reid off-kilter, onto some strange and growing continuum of defensiveness, anger and alarm.</p><p>"Stop—stop fucking smiling at me."</p><p>"I just think you're so darn <em>cute</em>," she says, toeing at his foot under the table.</p><p>He recoils from the unexpected contact like he's brushed against an electrified fence. There's a nauseating potential insinuation in her words that makes JJ's heart sink, but she can't get a sense of anything off of Spence. He's giving Adams his poker face again, trying to read something from her.</p><p>"Paul liked to play games with you too."</p><p>"He did. His favourite was to put me in circumstances where I had no choice but to fight him. I've spent a lot of time in SHU—it was almost better, just to be able to get away from him for a while."</p><p>"If you didn't square off you'd look like his little bitch. He must have thought that was very funny." It's clear that Cat finds the idea amusing too.  "What did he do to you?"</p><p>"Things you can't let slide or there's blood in the water. Cut in line, reach over my tray, mess with my stuff. Spit in my food, say things about Garcia and Morgan when they visited, talk all sort of shit. Right in front of the COs, so when I had to retaliate he could just stand back and watch me get dragged off again without any repercussions."</p><p>"Did you try to switch cells?"</p><p>"Yeah, because I'm at summer camp. He finally kicked the shit out of me so badly that they moved me in with Talbot after I got out of the hospital ward."</p><p>"But he kept playing his little game up until you went to ad seg, right?"</p><p>"He was uncertain about me afterwards. I'd never shown any indication that I might be capable of something serious before Bulwer. I was never a physical threat to him, but even a little guy can stab you to death if he snaps. He'd had seven months to find other people to torment anyway."</p><p>"You stayed out of each other's way until I brought you two back together." She laces her fingers together in front of her to emphasizing the reunion.</p><p>"Yes, Cat."</p><p>"And you didn't really learn anything from all those anger management workshops you've been going to. You got upset and did something stupid."</p><p>"I did," he admits.</p><p>"How soon after going apeshit in that conflict resolution class did you realize that you'd made a catastrophic mistake?"</p><p>Spence leans back in his seat with a creak, running an exhausted hand through his hair. "Oh, immediately."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>To clarify, you are apparently supposed to spit your toothpaste in the toilet in prison.  Lil fact in case you ever get into trouble.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Dave II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dave couldn't hazard a guess at how many times he's seen Reid in an interrogation room with a suspect before. A hundred, at least, in spaces nearly identical to the one behind the mirror. As an interrogator, Reid had an extraordinary facility for finessing the answers out of taciturn unsubs and often used his unassuming disposition to great advantage. Dismissive criminals would soon find themselves tripping over their alibis and stumbling into disclosures they'd never intended. Sometimes what looked like a fumble was actually a deft manipulation, and a benign inquiry might become the snare that the perpetrator never glimpsed underfoot. A single slipped detail could be all it took for his keen mind to connect the dots to a brilliant conclusion that would see a killer behind bars for life. It was just a single facet of his many talents; Reid was one of the finest profilers that Dave could have imagined when he'd begun working at the BAU back in its infancy.</p><p>Just beyond the mirror, reality has been grotesquely inverted. There's the ubiquitous white male between the ages of twenty-five and forty with a history of social isolation and a record for violent crime, sure. He's wearing a much too familiar face. Cat Adams was never meant to be the one conducting such an exhaustive investigation, and there is no sane universe where Spencer Reid was intended to be sweating it out as the angry, defensive suspect in the hands of a superior strategist.</p><p>The game that Adams has constructed doesn't give Reid the opportunity to parry her attacks, and he hasn't found any clever openings to pry information out of her. Dave has been anticipating a flash of genius insight that blows this whole case open, but instead he's seen a very troubled man make a long series of weary admissions. As much as he loathes to accept it, Reid's lost too much of his edge. Adams has spent their years of incarceration using her obsessive efforts to batter him into this distressingly blunt condition. Dave's got enough expertise in the kitchen to know exactly how dangerous an unsharpened knife can be, and it only adds to the instability of the situation.</p><p>Reid has been ceding territory since he first sat down in his chair. He's allowed himself to be walked backwards, but Dave isn't sure what he'll do when he reaches the point where he can't or won't retreat further. His circumstances have been conditioning him to respond to threats with aggression, and his new issues with anger increase the hazards underfoot. The precipice that Adams is trying to force him to the edge of remains unclear, but the results are likely to be devastating.</p><p>In waiting so long to reveal her hand, Cat has proven herself a very patient woman. Reid would still be back in Florence and unaware of her influence if she hadn't already contorted him into the position she wanted. She's been shaping him like a human bonsai tree, snipping away what disinterests her and warping his growth in unnatural directions. The full extent of her manipulation is still unknown. They're going to reach the crux of this debacle soon, but Dave thinks that whatever it's centered around has surely already taken place.</p><p>Reid's worried that she has something on him. It's there in the searching looks that have been frequently crossing his face since he was exposed for dealing heroin in exchange for Suboxone. Those calculating stares being directed at Adams aren't just to assess what other possible weaknesses she might know about him. They're not for determining a potential answer to his secret, but to feel out the likelihood that she knows a very specific one.</p><p>He's barreling breakneck down the tracks into Cat's new variation on the trolley problem. Historically, Reid has been perhaps the most bullheadedly selfless person that Dave knows. An unshakably decent man, unstinting in his altruism. By necessity, he's also spent the last four years focused on little else beyond desperate self-preservation. If Adams is looking to have compromised him, there's nothing that would prove it more than Reid choosing his freedom at an unconscionable price.</p><p>This trap isn't just for Spencer; it's for his silent and invisible audience too. His former teammates are fixed in place and powerless to intervene. Whatever is going to happen to the Simmons family exists entirely beyond their sphere of influence. Aside from the additional burden of psychological pressure their presence exerts, they are doing nothing for Reid. Adams has crafted a shared experience to bring them together one more time, and the sensation of helpless confinement is truly agonizing.</p><p>Despite the odds, Dave makes the conscious choice to maintain faith in his old friend. He does it for all that they've faced together through their history and for every miraculous victory Reid has snatched from the jaws of defeat. For the years that have passed where Dave should have been digging for the truth instead of accepting the ruse about Scratch. He's failed the kid, and it is one of the biggest regrets he will ever face.</p><p>Adams tilts herself onto the back legs of her chair to rest her feet on the table with impertinence. "You don't win fights," she asserts pointedly.</p><p>"No, I really don't." There's no humour in his smile. "But it wasn't a fair one. He'd fallen off a ladder on his maintenance shift. Did you break his arm for me?"</p><p>"Gravity and lack of OSHA compliance did the most of the work; I just nudged things along. Having to watch you lose and lose gets a little depressing," she lies. "You needed an advantage. I'm so proud of you, tiger."</p><p>"He was in one of those desks that has a bar on one side. I just had to knock him over so his good arm was pinned under him and he couldn't do much." His hands fist tightly into the orange fabric covering his knees. "I made a real mess of things."</p><p>"It sure took a long time to break you two up. A CO should have been right there. I hear that you broke your hand making Herzog eat his own teeth." She flashes hers in a knife-edge smile. "He was very embarrassed afterwards. What did you think when you first saw him in that class? It was your safe place, right?"</p><p>"I knew that he was there to start fucking with me again."</p><p>Cat's feet begin to encroach towards Reid's side of the table as she stretches out her legs. "Maybe he just wanted to find a resolution to your conflict."</p><p>Reid leans away, his irritated gaze locked on her dirty shoes. "It was a predatory attempt to seek out weakness; your friend must have convinced him I wasn't a threat. I couldn't give up any footing or he'd try to take it all. If I conceded, I was prey. If I went with the usual little performative conflict to stand my ground, we were just playing his game already. I can't get into trouble with that frequency again or they'll stick me back in ad seg." It's a factual assessment underlaid with tremendous fear. "He was going to start doing it again, and I didn't have a single way to stop him."</p><p>"That's quite the defeatist outlook. I like it on you. You should consider applying it to your future," she warns. "You didn't come to a very rational conclusion, did you? He had you cornered and you lost your damn mind."</p><p>"Briefly," Reid allows, finally looking up from Cat's shoes to meet her eyes.</p><p>"You know, you're a lot of fun when you feel trapped. It's when you make your most interesting decisions. I wish I could have seen it." She playfully rocks her chair a little further back on its rear legs. "Are you feeling a bit penned in right now?"</p><p>Reid kicks out hard at the edge of the table. Cat's feet fly into the air and she windmills precariously in a frantic attempt to regain balance, teetering on the verge of a backwards fall. The attempt to stabilize herself is barely successful, and the chair slams back on all fours to the sound of her surprised laughter.</p><p>"God, we should really do this more often," she enthuses to Reid's dead-eyed expression across the table. "I am having the best time right now."</p><p>That's genuine. She's put an incredible amount of effort into her plot, and now she's enjoying the fruits of her labour. Cat is revelling in the torment she's inflicted to the point that she's almost affectionate for Reid—she's certainly possessive, having managed to isolate and control him so wonderfully. He's a personal project she's poured her heart into from afar, and now that he's finally here his every reaction only delights her further. Dave doubts that Reid could make a move that would upset her; he's her favourite toy and she likes to see him all wound up.</p><p>"Do you think that fight was the worst mistake you've ever made?" Cat wants something specific here, Dave thinks.</p><p>"It was a significant error."</p><p>"You know," she leads, "all the consequences you've been facing trace back to the choice you made to lie during our first game. Have you considered apologizing?"</p><p>It won't help. There's at least two-hundred and four corpses to prove that pleading won't get a man anywhere with her. Dave doesn't want to see it.</p><p>Her audacity pushes Reid's self-restraint nearer to its breaking point. His hands clutch hard on his thighs as he takes slow, focused inhales, eyes closed. "No, I'm not going to do that. You got what you deserved."</p><p>"Maybe you will too."</p><p>There's a fine tremor in the scruffy curve of Reid's scowl as he sits there hating her, waiting on the next question. His eyes search hers for something.</p><p>"You spent four weeks in SHU for what you did to Herzog. What did you do when you got out?"</p><p>"I submitted a cop-out form to get put in protective custody."</p><p>She squints at him. "You didn't want to go into protective custody when we talked about Warren Bulwer."</p><p>"Bulwer was an isolated entity that I found a way to troubleshoot. Herzog was part of a pre-existing framework with allies and access to resources. Different situation." He's being very blunt about the new and terrible sort of calculus he has to perform. "They let you use the phone and have a TV or a radio in the PC unit. I'd do it out of necessity."</p><p>"Your transfer didn't go through, though." She's hiding her smile.</p><p>"I got a hell of a lecture from the unit manager about how I'm always the aggressor and how close I was to spending the rest of my days in ad seg after what I did to Herzog." Dave sees it click, far slower than it should. The colour drains from Reid's face in an instant. "Dalton's your guy?"</p><p>He's visibly shaken at the realization that Adams has been directing the man with near-total control over his circumstances. Once Dalton was promoted, Cat could do just about anything she pleased. The degree of invasion and surveillance must feel overwhelming, even as a convict accustomed to a complete lack of privacy.</p><p>"We got to know each other when I was at Mount Pleasant," Adams explains. "I have some truly life-ruining blackmail on the man, and he seems to like Colorado well enough now."</p><p>Reid takes a moment to press the heels of his palms against his eyes and practice his controlled breathing. She's getting him keyed up again.</p><p>"You were in a serious situation that you couldn't escape from. What did you do? I want specifics on your behaviours, please."</p><p>He drags his hands down off of his face with a pressurized exhale. "I had to do the same shit everyone else in Florence does when they know that someone wants to kill them. I carried an extra sock and a pocket full of batteries wherever I went in case I needed a quick weapon, and had a shank I hid in the yard just in case. Kept my back to a lot of walls. I stayed behind T-Rex as much as I could, and stuck close to my car the rest of the time."</p><p>"That's your little group of white boys from Nevada, right?" She cocks an eyebrow. "I hate the racial divide of prison politics. I hear you were so scared of Herzog that you'd have one of your pals play lookout for you every time you showered, and that you always keep your sneakers on when you do. Never heard of shower shoes?"</p><p>"I saw a guy in flip-flops who needed to make a run for it once, and he tripped." Reid grimaces. "He didn't have time to get back up. I'm not making that mistake."</p><p>"The guys that watch your back, that's a reciprocal arrangement. You do things for them, they do things for you?" She's all lined up for her next opportunity to drag him through the mud.</p><p>"Nothing is free," he says, resignation in his tone.</p><p>"You obviously aren't, but your convictions are <em>very</em> cheap. You get up to all sorts of trouble for them. You use your magic tricks to move contraband and you back them up when they have their little beefs." She smiles derisively. "Is it a nice change for you to be the one doing the arm-twisting? I hear that you recently ended up in a very high-stakes poker game to get your friend Nixon out of some bad debts. It's a good thing that you won—did you cheat?"</p><p>"I can't do everything alone, Cat. I'd like to go home one day, and it's impossible to keep my hands clean unless I want to get there in a casket." He used to collapse inwardly in the face of his own discomfort, but this new Reid puffs up with hostility instead. It's easy to interpret, either way.</p><p>Dave wonders how long it took to erode away so much of the man he'd known. If his principles had crumbled off in little pieces or if they'd given way in great landslides all at once. When he had made his visit to Millburn, he'd told Spencer that he would never become immune to it all. He'd said that he was too good a person to go numb. Maybe what he'd really done was just wound Reid further when brutal reality crashed up against his idealism. As the moral compromises started to pile up so that he could make it through another day, did he hate himself more for what Dave had said, or did he just let it fade out?</p><p>"If you get those hands dirty with three dead hostages, you can go home right now," Cat offers.</p><p>"That's not going to happen." It's forceful, but Dave wishes it was delivered with the calm certainty Reid used to have when he spouted statistics.</p><p>"Maybe not, but it's very important to me that you have options." Her sincerity is unsettling. "How did you know Herzog wanted you dead?"</p><p>"He told me. Everyone else told me too; people gossip. He was always trying to find an opening. Constantly circling me. I had to just fucking run away sometimes." Exhaustion lines his face at the very memory of it. "He came especially close at lunch once. I made a show of shoving Jon-Jon right in front of the COs and they put me in SHU for a week."</p><p>"So you just waited for him to find his chance to get you alone? You didn't think about getting to him first?"</p><p>He gives her a hollow look. "I'd really like to get out of prison, Cat. Stabbing a man won't help me with that. He had friends too, and they're a lot scarier than mine. The only way to get close to him would've been when he was aware of me, and if that happened I wasn't going to come out of it alive."</p><p>She shoots Reid a knowing side-eye. "Sounds like you did think about it, then. Did you consider that he might outsource his problem-solving?"</p><p>"Not seriously. It was a personal matter and a massive narcissistic injury. He'd need to save face after the humiliation of losing to someone like me, and anyone else cleaning up his embarrassment would only make him look weaker. He was always very hands-on—"</p><p>"Ooh, hands-on?" She wags her eyebrows.</p><p>"—but I didn't consider the Hobbesian trap," he finishes loudly over her interruption.</p><p>"There are a lot of traps that you never consider." She's smug, of course. "I don't know this one, though."</p><p>"It's an aspect of game theory that explains the escalation of fear spirals and why preemptive strikes occur. He was so worried about me planning something against him that he jumped right to a heightened phase of conflict before I even made another move."</p><p>It's difficult to imagine anyone being truly afraid of Reid. On the other hand, Dave has been watching his behaviour and feeling troubled by what he might do to Adams if she pushes him too far. Herzog had first-hand knowledge of what Reid was capable of under the wrong circumstances. Reality feels like a very tenuous place after all of today's revelations.</p><p>"That brings us to your encounter with the big bad Wolf. Tell me a story." She goes to put her feet back up on the table, but rethinks the decision and crosses her legs instead.</p><p>"I do first shift yard duty, early in the mornings. There's nobody there at that hour except the other guys on the crew. It was the day I was moving a package for Hughes, so my focus was elsewhere."</p><p>"Herzog couldn't get to you out there. You felt safe." There's mockery in her tone.</p><p>"Stupid of me, but I know all the other guys on yard crew pretty well. I didn't consider any of them to be high-level threats under the parameters."</p><p>"Did you know Wolf?"</p><p>He nods. "For a few months when I first got in. He was one of Herzog's friends, working on joining the Aryan Brotherhood. He hadn't made his bones yet; it takes years before they let someone become a full member. The Bureau of Prisons does their best to stomp out the AB these days, and they caught on and transferred him to a different block. I hadn't seen him in a long time."</p><p>"How could he possibly have ended up out there with you?" She's wide-eyed with feigned ignorance.</p><p>Reid manages forbearance, but it's a struggle. "I heard that there was an error on the yard crew roster that morning. I figured a CO had been bribed or blackmailed." It was a correct assumption, in a roundabout way.</p><p>"Tell me what happened."</p><p>"It was winter, and it had snowed overnight. Atypically heavy for the region. We were shovelling, so it was noisy. I didn't hear him coming up behind me but I saw Holland looking over just beforehand. He had the body language of a man trying to not to react. I was able to get my arms up to cover my neck in time."</p><p>"Can I see your scars?" There's an unnerving eagerness to the request.</p><p>"No," Reid says flatly, "there was no show-and-tell on your list of rules."</p><p>"Dalton said that you got really sliced up," she pouts.</p><p>"I did. All over my forearms, and on my chest too. I thought you said you weren't trying to get me killed."</p><p>"And I told you that I have a lot of faith in you." She smiles sweetly. "What happened next?"</p><p>Reid has no more patience for storytime. "He tried to murder me with a shiv; I hit him a couple times with a snow shovel. The guards in the tower saw us fighting and started shooting."</p><p>The perpetual horror his life has become is very funny, apparently. Adams tosses her head back and erupts into a full-bodied laugh at his expense. Reid rankles and watches her outburst silently, fists opening and closing under the table.</p><p>"Oh god," she gasps. It's her turn to try to control her breathing. "It's all gas and no brakes with you. How did you never notice me?"</p><p>Reid is so incensed that he has to look away.</p><p>She wipes at her eyes. "You must have hit the ground pretty fast once the shooting started. Did you think you were going to die?"</p><p>"It seemed like a definite possibility. I was losing a lot of blood and there were bullets being fired at me."</p><p>"Were you scared?" It's drawled in a childish taunt.</p><p>"I was fucking angry," he snaps. "I was angry I might get shot because some asshole was killing me, I was angry I didn't hear him coming, I was angry I was never going to make it home."</p><p>As the conversation has unfolded, Reid's slowly begun talking with his hands again. Right now they're not the fluttering gestures of a mouth trying to keep up with a brilliant mind. They're jarring, pugilistic movements that look a lot like barely-restrained impulses towards violence.</p><p>"You're still here, Spencie. You even got to take an ambulance ride out of Florence to spend some time handcuffed to a hospital bed. This," she taps on the table, "is the second vacation I've given you now. What happened when you got back?"</p><p>His face twists with resentment. "I submitted so many cop-out forms that Dalton told me he'd take away my phone and mail privileges if I tried again. He said Wolf wasn't on my block so there was no reason for me to feel unsafe."</p><p>"What were you thinking?"</p><p>"I was thinking that Wolf was pretty close to being an Aryan Brother, and that if Herzog found a way to get them fully involved I'd be a dead man very soon. The AB make up less than a tenth of a percent of the federal prison population but they're responsible for twenty-one percent of murders inside. They're monsters, and they don't drop something once they commit to it. I had to figure something out before that happened."</p><p>Just listening to this is giving Dave sweaty palms from second-hand anxiety. He knows the oppression of unceasing paranoia all too well from his service in Vietnam. Remembers the hyperawareness that comes with unrelenting danger and the bone-crushing fatigue that has to be swept aside because there is simply no room for human weakness. He sees the rope that Cat has provided, tied in a noose that grows tighter and tighter around Reid's desperate, terrified throat.</p><p>"Your next move was risky," she says, leaning forward on her elbows. "I'd say crazy, even. Talk to me."</p><p>"I had Fisher act as a lookout, went into a bathroom and popped a bunch of my stitches." He crosses his arms. "I pretended I was having a schizophrenic break."</p><p>"You had plenty of first-hand knowledge from mom, I guess." She tilts her head at him. "If I'm being honest, you're not quite right upstairs anymore. You could probably use some therapy."</p><p>It's a last-ditch effort of a man nearly out of options, and there's absolutely nothing about it on his transcripts. Of course, Dalton would have master access to those files and could amend or delete whatever he wanted. He'd be able to bury anything that might make him look guilty or negligent.</p><p>"I spent two weeks picking stitches on suicide watch, did a couple of psych evals that should have won me an Oscar, and then they just dropped me right back in gen pop."</p><p>"That outcome must have made you feel a little nuts. Act for me." She watches him open his mouth for a furious refusal and cuts him off with an extended hand. "No, wait. When I make you lose it, it's going to be authentic. Why didn't you keep it up when you went back? They would have had to do something eventually."</p><p>"Because the passively mentally ill are immediately eaten alive and the violently insane get put in ad seg." His disgust at the justice system is unmistakable. "It wouldn't help me."</p><p>"You wasted your time, and all it did was prove that you're a scared little bitch." She almost sings the jeer.</p><p>Those are fighting words for Reid. The muscles in his neck strain from how tightly he tenses in response. "I thought I'd be able to get transferred to a mental hospital," he grits through his teeth. "I could have gotten out of there if it weren't for you."</p><p>"You're never getting out," Cat says decisively. "You're trapped. Stuck in the glue."</p><p>"I'm not a fucking mouse," he snarls, palms striking heavily against the surface of the table in emphasis.</p><p>"No honey, I know you're not." Her voice is fond. "You're more of a snake, I'd say."</p><p>There's another one of those long pauses, and something that looks like nausea works its way across Reid's pale face. Cat winks.</p><p>They must be close to the point of all of this. The tension in the interrogation room is palpable, and the story dangles unresolved. Dave feels sick. He has a question he can't bring himself to ask; decides instead that for now, just this once, he is simply going to watch.</p><p>Cat finally breaks the silence. "Do you want to know what I'd have done in your situation?"</p><p>"I lied to you <em>one time</em> and you've completely destroyed my life. What you'd do will never be relevant." He's finally hit that familiar high-pitched tenor so indicative of his stress level. Something is very wrong.</p><p>"You know, this is all on you." Cat jabs an accusatory finger at him. "You don't take responsibility for your actions."</p><p>"<em>Take responsibility</em>?" Reid's astonished laugh is thick with hysteria. "I took responsibility for what you did and I got five-to-ten for it!"</p><p>"Your choices are the reason you're here."</p><p>"Choices?" He's shouting now. "You've put me in impossible situations—"</p><p>"And you made all of your decisions without my input. You thought it was just the hand life dealt you, and this is how you played it. It doesn't make any practical difference that I cut the deck." There's hungry malevolence glittering in her eyes. "Here's a question for you: what exactly have you been thinking about yourself this whole time?"</p><p>An angry spasm shakes through him violently. "I'll fucking tell you what I think of <em>you—</em>"</p><p>"It's time to get real, Spencer. You took your little secret trips to Mexico. I had you set up, but you accepted the guilty plea because you always see lying as your best option."</p><p>"Fucking bullshit," he bellows, fists slamming against the table with such unexpected force that everyone on Dave's side of the mirror recoils. Adams has closed in, and Reid is rapidly unwinding.</p><p>Cat doesn't flinch. "I cornered you with your employment history, and you kicked a man half to death. When I gave you a structured opportunity to use your words and resolve your long-standing issues with another inmate, just look where you ended up—"</p><p>She's cut off by the screech of Reid's chair across the grubby linoleum as he pushes up out of his seat. He leans forward across the table onto his knuckles, close enough that Adams must feel the warmth of his ragged breath on her face.</p><p>"You did this<em>."</em> The softness of the accusation is at odds with the body language of a man so clearly on the brink. His gaze is almost vacant, pupils blown wide. Dave doubts he's really seeing much of anything through the panic and rage that's clouding his mind. The moment feels incendiary.</p><p>Cat looks up at him calmly. "You did it all yourself. Every time I've pushed the line out a little further, you've done the long jump. That's all on you, champ—"</p><p>"No!" A fist collides violently against the tabletop again. "No, you are <em>not</em> doing this to me!"</p><p>"How do you live with knowing that it's all your fault? The moment's arrived where we get to see if you can be honest for a change, Dr. Reid. I know how partial you are to lies and evasion."</p><p>"I'm going to kill you," Reid decides.</p><p>Luke looks like he's preparing to have to run into the interrogation room. Everything about JJ screams that she wants to escape, but she maintains her position at the mirror and holds back her tears.</p><p>Adams pays no attention to the threat. "When it comes down to it, you're a very predictable man. I know you better than you know yourself, babe. It's why I gave you access to the heroin. I was sure you'd decide to use it again eventually." Her next smile is a punctuation mark. "I'm all finished with my questions."</p><p>Reid's chair ricochets off of two separate walls before it comes to a clattering halt on the floor behind Adams. She goes very still, all rapt attention on her opponent as he staggers away from the table in a fit of apoplectic sputtering.</p><p>"Connect four!" Cat thrusts her arms into the air victoriously. "I guess it's more of a catch twenty-two for you, though."</p><p>As Dave watches Reid spiralling into an acute panic attack, the realization doesn't feel at all like it dawns on him. It's nothing like a soft shifting of light that brightens the details until understanding arrives. Instead, a gaping sinkhole appears suddenly beneath his feet.</p><p>Adams wasn't talking about Reid's addiction when she alluded to him using the heroin again. She'd found him predictable in a very different way. Involving him in the drug trafficking was a much more calculated setup than Dave had given her credit for, and there's a reason she'd saved it for last on her list.</p><p>She was referring to the poisoning at Millburn.</p><p>His fingers are leaden as he hits the speed dial on his phone. She'd said it earlier. That Reid had a former cellmate who'd overdosed. He has to ask the question, and he hates himself for it nearly as much as he hates Cat Adams for what she's done to his friend.</p><p>"Our Lady of Perpetual—"</p><p>"Penelope," he cuts her off, "can you please get me the autopsy report of inmate Paul Herzog at USP Florence?"</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here's my little playlist for maladaptive daydreaming:   <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6RqWw2eOk3A9f5NY47edXla">It's questionably paced and curated.</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Emily II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Emily's always had a skill for compartmentalization. It's a tool she's developed since childhood, and one that's been incredibly useful in a career full of perilous, gruesome circumstances that have to be approached with reason and professionalism rather than emotion. In order to stay composed in difficult situations, she places her feelings into separate little boxes until the time is right for their supervised release. Everything is organized and managed carefully, and she hardly ever has to keep her guard up to maintain self-control.</p>
<p>Right now, Emily's got alarms shrieking in her head. The compartments are becoming unruly; unsettled inhabitants bang up against the doors she's built to keep them carefully isolated. The ramifications of Rossi's question are exceptionally clear as she watches Reid pace in frantic circles near the exit of the interrogation room, gasping like a burn victim. Her aisles of little boxes have been suddenly cast into the harsh, disorienting glow of an unwelcome searchlight. She finds that she has accidentally constructed a long row of cells very similar to the ones housed in the building she currently occupies, and that the feelings she's put away disagree strongly with the duration and terms of their sentencing. Keeping them on lockdown is becoming extremely difficult.</p>
<p>The faint clicking of Garcia's keyboard is barely audible over Rossi's speakerphone. Emily focuses on that, rather than the strangled, rage-infused croaks that claw from the throat of the distraught felon she counts among her best friends. Despite his earlier threat on her life, Spencer has put as much distance as he can between himself and Adams. She hopes his proximity to the door is for that reason alone.</p>
<p>Cat is intoxicated by Reid's meltdown. Her enthralled gaze tracks him as he lurches back and forth, fists clutching handfuls of hair, his eyes squeezed shut. He's in a place far beyond words now. Seeing the smartest man she's ever known made inarticulate with unrestrained anguish leaves the doors of Emily's compartments rattling against their hinges. Her hand finds its way up to her mouth.</p>
<p>"...got it," Garcia announces, from a distant place where the world has yet to be upended. "Paul Herzog, formerly of Akron, Ohio. Passed away nine months ago at the end of February, age of thirty-two. The coroner ruled it an accidental drug-related death."</p>
<p>That's not necessarily an overdose. What remains of the white edge of Emily's thumbnail tears painfully against an incisor.</p>
<p>"Could you give me the details from the toxicology report?" Rossi's characteristically self-assured voice is very thin.</p>
<p>"Yep!" Keys tap in Quantico. "He'd injected himself with a lot of heroin—like, a <em>lot</em> a lot, wow, but it had been cut with a synthetic opiate that had contraindications with a medication he was on for his bipolar disorder. He was taking an MAOI inhibitor called Nardil, and it would have caused an adverse reaction. The coroner's report determined that he'd died accidentally from a rapid onset of serotonin syndrome."</p>
<p>"What synthetic opiate, Penelope?" It's Luke's question this time.</p>
<p>"Buprenorphine? Brand name is—"</p>
<p>"Suboxone," Emily finishes for her, on the verge of an internal riot. "Thank you, Garcia."</p>
<p>Dave ends the call and sags against the mirror, forehead pressed to the glass. Emily is suddenly aware of how old he looks. JJ has turned her back to the rest of the team, but hiding the view of her tears does not conceal the sound of them.</p>
<p>"Long deep breaths through your nose, Spencer!" Cat calls out gleefully across the room. "If you can still remember what it's like, imagine that you're somewhere peaceful and pleasant."</p>
<p>The only reason for further provocation is to incite him to violence. He responds with the breathless type of grunt that comes with taking a gut-punch, then swerves into another tight loop. His laboured breathing and the incredible purpling of his face are both so dramatic that Emily worries he may drop from a lack of oxygen.</p>
<p>Suboxone had been a subject of considerable discussion on her call yesterday with Tara. Emily had wanted to know if it was an indication that Reid was working to overcome his addiction, but Tara had cautioned that despite its relatively low abuse potential it was still a common recreational drug inside of prisons. Suboxone is available in strips of dissolvable sublingual films that are easily concealed under stamps and shipping labels or tucked into the seams of clothing, making it virtually impossible to cut off trafficking. It's become a pervasive issue in American prisons to the point that some penitentiaries have begun replacing letters addressed to inmates with photocopies instead. Reid didn't mention any issues with accessing the drug, and alluded to having personally used it multiple times.</p>
<p>The whole thing is genius, because why would it be anything else? From an investigatory standpoint, nobody would bat an eye at the heroin having been cut with another opiate. Herzog had already been gambling with his life by taking his medication and using street drugs. During her teenage goth phase, Emily had a depressed friend on the MAOI inhibitor Parnate. He'd had a mile-long list of foods and drugs that he couldn't touch because of the serious risk of life-threatening side effects. Herzog may have had a lot of faith in the purity of the heroin he was using, or he'd simply been an addict who'd come to prioritize his high over his health. In the end, he'd have just looked like another junkie whose dependency had cost him his life. Problem solved and case closed. If Adams hadn't forced the issue, nobody would have ever known.</p>
<p>When she considers it further, she sees the exceedingly clever built-in mechanism to ensure that Herzog would reach the dosage necessary to kill him. Serotonin syndrome is often slow and cumulative, and it needed to happen fast to avoid medical treatment. The second ingredient in Suboxone is naloxone, the drug used to reverse overdoses. Tara had explained that when Suboxone is taken orally as intended, the naloxone is absorbed inefficiently by the body. Its presence limits abuse of the drug, because injecting Suboxone undoes the high—the naloxone blocks out opiate receptors and can actually kick an addict directly into withdrawal. Herzog would have found his heroin ineffective and used much more of it than usual, loading his veins with an excess of the buprenorphine that had killed him.</p>
<p>Reid has already admitted to knowing that Herzog was medicated, even though he hadn't voiced the exact prescription. MAOI inhibitors like Nardil are very rarely prescribed these days, having been almost entirely replaced by newer generations of antidepressants with fewer side effects. Mental health treatment in federal prisons is chronically underfunded and inmates are generally unlikely to be medicated for psychological conditions. The result from the drug tampering was that some convicts in Florence had found themselves in the possession of very disappointing heroin, and the lone target of the assassination had died shortly after using it. Emily believes that the goal had been to avoid anyone else getting hurt, but it would also circumvent any uninvited scrutiny.</p>
<p>At Millburn, Spencer had used poison like a spray of buckshot and there had been collateral damage she knows that he regretted. This time, he'd found a way to fire a sniper's rifle. There had been a messy trial and error phase first, and then he'd refined his approach. The BAU sees it often enough when it comes to killers.</p>
<p>The means, motive, and opportunity are all accounted for. It's murder in the first degree, premeditated with malice. There is currently no denying that he is mentally unwell, but it is much too organized a killing for an insanity defense. Even with evidence of the impossible minefield that Adams and Dalton had planted for him to navigate through, there are no legal grounds to poison a man in self-defense. Mandatory federal sentencing: life without parole. Another guilty plea and the extenuating circumstances will keep the death penalty off the table. It is an impossibly small comfort.</p>
<p>Despite the pieces of herself slamming up furiously against her weakening internal steel bars, she can't hide another confession for him like she did with the false one in Mexico. If it hadn't been overlooked, that deleted tape could have cost much more than her job during the Linda Barnes debacle. The level of personal involvement and the steps taken to bring Spencer here will almost certainly result in attention from higher levels of management. The risk for the team is far too great, and one agent in prison is already too many. This is another trap that she is helpless to rescue him from.</p>
<p>Right now, the BAU could still manage to bury this for Reid, as long as he leaves the room or gives Adams a false answer. Matt will just have to bury his wife and sons as a result. It would be an indefensible trade that she could never live with.</p>
<p>If Spencer's mental instability is what ends things, Emily will put so much pressure on the BOP for their role in enabling this disaster that they will have to move him to a medical treatment facility. Should he make a conscious choice to prioritize his freedom over the lives of three innocents, she will not offer her complicity in a cover-up. The horrible truth is that no matter what happens behind the mirror, Reid is lost to them. He is either never coming home, or he is no longer the sort of man who belongs there. Cat Adams has taken him away forever, and this is the second time that he has dug his own grave.</p>
<p>She thought that she'd grasped the story of the mouse in the glue trap. She'd sympathized with Reid's empathy for the hopeless rodent, but until now, stuck on the outside, she hadn't truly understood it. This violent tumult of futile, helpless emotion suddenly running rampant inside her is what it has felt like for him this whole time, in a hundred different ways. Some part of him must pray for the mercy of a heavy foot to put an end to his inconceivable predicaments, even as he fights relentlessly for every single breath.</p>
<p>He's fighting tooth and nail for them right now, hands scrabbling at the collar of his jumpsuit. His panicked fingers lack the dexterity to properly negotiate buttons, but a vicious yank pops three of them off.</p>
<p>Cat rises from her seat and takes a cautious step towards him. "Usually when someone is having an anxiety attack, you're supposed to give them the option to leave the situation. You have it, Spencer. Touch the doorknob and the game is over."</p>
<p>In response, Reid reels away from the exit and deeper into the room. Whether he's trying to get away from the door or approaching Cat's hateful voice, Emily can't guess. It's difficult for him to coordinate while walking, but he manages to thrash his upper body out of the jumpsuit. It exposes goosepimpled arms that are lined with intersecting razor-thin scars, and a white t-shirt already soaking through with sweat.</p>
<p>Cat turns the corner around the table, removing the only physical barrier protecting her. "I'd tell you that the intense fear and dread you're feeling are passing sensations, but I'd be lying. Concentrate on your breathing and stay in the present for me, okay?"</p>
<p>Reid comes to a halt at the wall opposite the mirror and takes his stand there, hyperventilating. His hands are balled into weapons at his sides as he watches her approach. Emily hardly recognizes the man. Sense has escaped him; he is caught up too tight in the instinctual stranglehold of fight-or-flight.</p>
<p>"It's not the place that's bothering you, it's the thought," Cat offers cheerfully. Before her back turns to them, Emily sees her squint like she's trying to remember the next platitude on the list. "Your fears are understandable, but we can get through this together." She steps closer, until she is almost within arm's reach.</p>
<p>He's going to hit her. It's written on his face and across his body, every muscle coiled in anticipation of brutal force. It's in the way that his back is to the wall and there's nowhere left to go. This is about to end. Adams takes one more step forward, and Luke is already headed towards the hallway.</p>
<p>It's pure accident that Reid's wild-eyed, unfocused gaze lands momentarily on the mirror behind Adams. Emily doesn't know what does it, but some thin tether of reality yanks an integral piece of himself back to sanity. Maybe it's seeing his own reflection seconds away from another fatal error that he can never reverse, or that he remembers there's an entire world that exists beyond the room he's been trapped inside. Perhaps it is the realization that he knows whoever is on the opposite side of the mirror looking back into his glassy eyes, and he remembers who he used to be to them.</p>
<p>Whatever the cause, he takes a final step backwards to press himself against the wall, quaking erratically. His fists unfurl into trembling, plaintive palms he holds up near his shoulders like a man under arrest at gunpoint, and he tears his eyes from the mirror to look at Adams with blank terror.</p>
<p>Rossi calls out to Luke and stops him at the door.</p>
<p>"Oh, good boy," Cat says as Reid stares down at her. She reaches out and seizes the dangling arms of the jumpsuit as he squirms back against the wall, then gently ties them together in a neat knot around his waist. He's incapable of much more than choking convulsions as he struggles for air, still watching her with the stricken expression of cornered prey. "Let's go sit back down."</p>
<p>He seems to always follow where she leads him, so when she tugs insistently at the end of an orange sleeve he staggers into the remaining chair and drops his head between his knees, wheezing like an asthmatic. Cat hops up onto the table immediately in front of him to sit cross-legged.</p>
<p>"Take your time, sweetie. If we wait until ten thirty, the place in Bruceton Mills opens up and I'm going to make the FBI pay for a pizza delivery. I memorized the number. You okay with pineapple as a topping?"</p>
<p>She allows herself a few minutes to quietly peer down at him with gratification at their power differential; her seated aloft and him bowed below her as a supplicant captive.</p>
<p>"You're in a pickle, doc. A real Prisoner's Dilemma." She waits for a moment, but he doesn't appreciate the joke. "I'd hoped you'd make a much bigger mess, but you're such a smart boy. For a little while there, I thought that I was the unlucky one. I had a tough time figuring it out."</p>
<p>His breathing has become a little less irregular, and his fingers slacken their grip in his hair. Panic attacks usually last between five to twenty minutes, and it looks like he might be starting to come out of it.</p>
<p>"I bet you're wondering why I waited so long to have you come visit. Do you realize that I haven't even touched you since I had your psych evals deleted? I wanted to give you some time to get to know yourself before I asked you to make any big decisions. Let it sink in a little, see how you'd deal with things."</p>
<p>He makes an indecipherable mumble, but it is the closest to language that he's come in a while. Cat taps her fingers against the tabletop.</p>
<p>"Mostly you did a lot of heroin. I was about to have Hughes busted because I was getting so worried, but T-Rex slapped some sense into you before I needed to." Her dark eyes regard him disdainfully. "What's it like to get an intervention from someone who uses that much cocaine?"</p>
<p>Reid unfolds just enough to rest his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. He's a sweat-soaked ghost of the man who entered the room earlier in the morning, still haunted by uncontrollable tremors.</p>
<p>"I'm going to give you one more chance to walk out of here. Will you take it?" Adams watches him very closely.</p>
<p>It's challenging for Reid to shake his head while he's grasping it so tightly, but his sideways swaying sends the message anyway.</p>
<p>"Because you don't want to go back to Colorado at all?"</p>
<p>"No," Reid chokes.</p>
<p>"Think this one through, doctor. You know what other Dylan song you're not going to be able to listen to if you do this?" She flashes a self-congratulatory smile. "<em>You Ain't Going Nowhere</em>."</p>
<p>Reid makes a noise caught on the border between a pained groan and an inappropriate laugh, then pulls himself further upright. He has a hard time removing his hands from his face; it's a classic nonverbal signal of shame. His exhausted, spiritless gaze locks onto Cat.</p>
<p>"I'm going back to Florence," he says faintly, and he knows that it means forever. Emily should never have doubted him.</p>
<p>"It's a little late to make the noble choice, Spencer."</p>
<p>"My secret is—"</p>
<p>"<em>Whoa</em>! Whoa, hold your horses!" She flails her arms at him. "You don't guess what the secret is until I ask for it, or I won't make my phone call."</p>
<p>Reid is the picture of defeat. His long legs tumble out corpse-like in front of him as he sags lower in his seat. "I don't want to be here anymore."</p>
<p>Cat tuts at him. "That's rude, and I haven't quite got everything I want from you yet. I think I'm close—let's see." She taps a finger on her chin theatrically. "You want to get out of this room so fast? They're going to put you inside one in ad seg for this and you won't be leaving it again. It's far too hazardous for the BOP to leave you in gen pop anymore, once they see how capable you are."</p>
<p>She aims right for the thing he fears the most, and it is probably true. Emily will do everything she can to prevent it.</p>
<p>Spencer's nod is more of a shudder.</p>
<p>"You'll be in there until they bury you in an even smaller box. I don't think it's going to take very long," she sneers. "You'll chew through your wrists within a year."</p>
<p>"I'll die an old man just to spite you," he promises.</p>
<p>Cat ponders him, chin in her hands. "You know, I was going to get my lawyer to stop chasing appeals and just expedite the death penalty for me after this. There's no way I'll have nearly this much fun again, and I might as well go out on a high note." It's a soft little smile, this time. "But if there's a competition to see who makes it the longest? Of course I'll stick around for you."</p>
<p>Reid changes his mind very abruptly. "I'm going to make that US Marshal shoot me on the way back to Colorado." He means it.</p>
<p>Cat shakes her head at him, amused. "I'm on the wrong track here. You did all of this because you wanted to go home, right?"</p>
<p>Spencer doesn't answer, just watches her with impossibly sad, tired eyes. The familiar dark shadows that always circle them are sunken, mottled bruises. He looks like a man who has been very badly beaten.</p>
<p>"But you're not going to go home." There's still some question in it. A little push to tempt him onto a different path.</p>
<p>"Home is in Florence," he says, and it is a truly hopeless statement. Almost a whimper.</p>
<p>She prods at him further, searching for a specific reaction. "You wouldn't have bothered with all of this, if you knew how it would end. It took a lot of effort and you hated every minute of it."</p>
<p>"What was I supposed to have done?" He's asking a genuine question, like she might offer up an overlooked strategy he could have used to win the rigged game he hadn't known he was playing. "I didn't have any options."</p>
<p>"No," Cat hums. "I always gave you choices. At multiple points in this little game, you could have decided to die. You would have gone out a good man if you'd made the right call. Even near the end, at least you'd have died as something more than this." She stares down her nose at him.</p>
<p>Spencer doesn't disagree. He keeps watching her, mouth contorting with the taste of something very bitter.</p>
<p>"Tell me," she demands.</p>
<p>"I should have died," he says hollowly. Emily wants to scream.</p>
<p>Cat's fingers seem to have found the open wound she was seeking, and they begin to dig in. "It's sad, because you were just trying to get back to your friends again, right? That's why you tried so hard, because it's what you wanted more than anything else in the world. You did it all because even if you became this awful man who could only ever lie to them about who you were, you'd still get to see them. It's been such a long time."</p>
<p>She surveys Reid from the table, watching him struggle fiercely against the way his breath has begun to leak out in little hitches. "I don't know if you're ever going to see them again," she stage whispers, "but I've made sure that they really got to see you."</p>
<p>His shoulders convulse, then lock up. He almost pulls himself together, but the composure that he has only just wrestled away from his anger and fear totally disintegrates. His face twists, and his hands claw back up into sweat-damp hair at his temples.</p>
<p>Cat shoots a triumphant glance to the mirror. "I wonder what they think of you now."</p>
<p>Reid collapses back in on himself. He hides his face in the collar of his shirt, and then he begins to cry.</p>
<p>"There it is," Cat coos to Spencer as he sobs. "That's what I wanted." She regards him, an artist reviewing the final touches of a time-consuming masterpiece. It must have taken so much planning, intuition, creativity and luck. She seems a little shocked to find it done.</p>
<p>Rossi turns his back to the mirror, unable to witness the results of this final cruelty. There is no tool in the justice system that Emily can use that will ever punish Adams enough for this. She burns with impotent hatred, and refuses to look away. She can't tell Spencer what she thinks of him right now, but prays that he will realize that she loves him anyway. That she can't possibly blame him for losing his way in the impenetrable tangle of snares he'd never had any chance to avoid, unaware and powerless as he was.</p>
<p>Reid allows himself only a bare minute of absolute despair, wracked with noisy grief, before he forces himself to confront what lies ahead. Every second of it is torture to watch. He straightens back up in his seat, wiping at his swollen face with the damp hem of his shirt. Then he waits passively for Cat to let it end, because there are finally no other choices left for him to make.</p>
<p>Cat forces him to sit for a while, presumably hoping to see him floundering some more. She relents when he proves too patient, his shallow breath settling back into a steady rhythm.</p>
<p>"Try not to feel too bad, Spencer. You did your best, but it's like with your games of Connect Four. The person who goes first always wins."</p>
<p>"No," Spencer says indignantly, pawing the traces of tears from his eyes. "Of course not always. Only with perfect play."</p>
<p>She gestures out at the room around them. "You don't think I've played you perfectly? You're in this position because I predicted every move that you'd make."</p>
<p>"You don't understand the concepts of game theory that underlie a solved game," he huffs, voice still thick from crying. "Connect Four was weakly solved in 1988 by James Allen and Victor Allis, but the weak solution only works from two very particular starting positions. It also can't necessarily always perform optimally against an imperfect opponent, though I've never seen it fail. Even I can only do it that way, using Allen's nine strategies in a knowledge-based approach. It took until…" he comes to an abrupt pause, nose scrunching with uncertainty, "1996, I think, for it to be strongly solved, when a minimax algorithm was computed to determine perfect moves from any position regardless of the presence of previous mistakes on the board. With true perfect play you <em>never</em> need to anticipate your opponent's moves because it has literally no effect on the outcome—"</p>
<p>"Oh, this is some truly pathetic stalling," Cat says.</p>
<p>"—you just run an integer benchmark to search and prune the enormous game tree with brute force. Over four trillion possible combinations on the board. There's no need to bother calculating the Nash Equilibrium by considering the other player's optimal strategies because they never matter." He noses a trail of snot off on the upper sleeve of his shirt.</p>
<p>It is the final heartbreak of the day to find that at the miserable end, after everything done to ruin him, he remains the same man in so many ways. He is still brave and selfless enough to choose the greater good over his own, and he continues to ramble inconsequentially on tangential subjects at the worst possible moments. Emily would like to sit next to him and listen to it for hours on end, but she is almost certainly never going to get the chance to again.</p>
<p>"Yes, that's <em>very</em> interesting, professor," Cat patronizes. "You do see how there was nothing you could have done to get yourself out of this once we'd started playing?"</p>
<p>He barrels onward hoarsely, long fingers grabbing at the empty air. "Your metaphor is flawed. Connect Four is a game where both sides have perfect information of all the previous events that have occurred, and I had no idea what was going on." He blinks at her owlishly. It is the ephemeral specter of an old expression, the one that solves mysteries. "And it's a zero-sum game, where each player's gain is equivalent to another player's loss."</p>
<p>"You're about to win a prize and lose a prize, and I am too. That evens out to zero, doc." She speaks delicately, as though he's a particularly slow child. "You can't think that there's a way for you to win it all."</p>
<p>"I don't," Spencer agrees, frowning deeply. The fingers on his left hand flick like he's counting something.</p>
<p>"Okay, great. You're all done." Cat is visibly annoyed with the extraneous facts interrupting her dramatic finale. "Dr. Reid, tell me your secret."</p>
<p>The day seems like it couldn't possibly hold another long pause, but it somehow finds the space. Emily's thumbnail can't endure any more abuse, and she switches to a pinkie as Reid takes a decisive inhale.</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"<em>No?</em>" Emily is floored to find herself asking the same startled question as Cat Adams.</p>
<p>"No. I don't think I can win everything, but I can lose everything. The Pareto optimal payoff in a zero-sum game induces a generalized relative selfish rationality standard. Do you know what that means?"</p>
<p>Cat does not know what that means, and Emily has no goddamn idea either.</p>
<p>"It's also referred to as the punishing-the-opponent standard, and it means that in a zero-sum game, both players will always seek to minimize their opponent's reward if it's at a favourable cost to themselves. Why would you be content with me winning anything at all when I can just lose completely, particularly if I'm always so predictable?" He sits taller in his chair, and something furious and sharp comes alive again within him. "This is another one of your bullshit traps. You're trying to get me to tell you the wrong answer."</p>
<p>Through the uprising of wild emotions she's been trying to force back into their compartments, Emily quite suddenly glimpses something she might recognize as the truth. She's uncertain, and it remains elusive.</p>
<p>Cat stares. "Oh," she concludes, "you've lost your mind."</p>
<p>"I'm right." The fevered glow of certainty lights up his puffy red eyes.</p>
<p>"And you're basing this decision off of Connect Four? A Parker Brothers game for ages five and up?" There's something to Cat's expression that goes beyond shock. She's very, very interested in this new development.</p>
<p>"Hasbro, I'm pretty sure it's ages six and up, and game theory provides a very useful mathematical framework to conceive of social situations between competing players. You've contrived a worst-case ending to this scenario. Your hostages will die and I'll have hanged myself, because you've anticipated exactly what choice I'll make."</p>
<p>Emily finds herself at a complete loss. He's missed all the other traps that Cat has laid for him. It's equally possible that he's caught on to her tactics as it is that the incredible stress and his genetic predisposition have finally pushed him into a state of paranoid delusion. He hasn't exactly been demonstrating the behaviours of a sound mind.</p>
<p>His reasoning makes sense, though. Tricking him into total defeat seems exactly like something that Adams would do. She would find it incredibly satisfying to destroy him with an attempt to do the right thing. That doesn't bring them any closer to an answer, and it doesn't mean that she hasn't already foreseen him coming to this conclusion. It might still be the real secret, dressed up as the wrong one. Based on Cat's earlier castigation of Reid for his deceptions, Emily feels fairly certain that she'll never outright lie during the game. She has no qualms at all about misdirection, though.</p>
<p>"You've already been hanging there for a while, and the lack of oxygen is getting to you." Cat produces an exasperated shrug that, under careful observation, might be a little too performative. Maybe that's just Emily's desperation screaming as she tries to shut the door on it. "I mean, what's your secret, then? Do you even have any left?"</p>
<p>"Oh, I have no idea." Reid scratches at his beard, brow furrowed. "I was really distracted by the other one. I'm going to have to think about it."</p>
<p>"Maybe you're just acting crazy again," Cat muses. "Trying to wriggle your way out of that noose." She turns and directly addresses her audience through the mirror, delight written across her face. "He did say at the beginning of this that he could pretend he was trying to win and throw the game instead. He's playing you."</p>
<p>Despite the long rollercoaster of emotions he's been riding, Reid's anger appears to be an inexhaustible resource. He stabs a finger towards Adams, teeth bared. "Leave them alone. This is a two-player game."</p>
<p>Cat's not wrong. She could have done her job so well that there's nothing left of the man that Emily knew. Maybe this is just a desperate murderer's bid to worm his way out of a very tight bind, and everything good that made up Spencer Reid has already been long since crushed out of him. Adams has highlighted exactly how he's been lying, cheating, and manipulating as a function of his daily survival. He wouldn't have made it this far if he wasn't exceptional at it.</p>
<p>He could be pulling a fast one on them, using crocodile tears and babbled jargon to play the BAU like fools in the hopes that they'll cover this up for him when he gets it wrong. He's got expert knowledge of human behaviour, and profound insight into their personal weaknesses. Maybe it's like Cat said, and he wants to come home so badly he'd tell them any lie it takes to get there.</p>
<p>Emily's suddenly the one faced with three choices. He's right, he's out of his mind, or he's misleading them. All are plausible.</p>
<p>"You want to know a really simple fact about weakly solved games of Connect Four, Cat? The type that humans are capable of playing?" Reid doesn't wait for an answer. "If the first player doesn't start in the two center columns or if they fuck up even once, they aren't guaranteed anything. You've already made a mistake by not letting me guess when I wanted to."</p>
<p>Cat's enjoying the sudden burst of activity from her prey. "You've gotten further from an answer than you were before. Even on the off-chance that you're right, you aren't going to figure it out."</p>
<p>Emily recognizes the look on Reid's face. It's a little unhinged, much too haggard, and brimming with unadulterated hate, but it's also a hell of a lot like the one that always used to crack open indecipherable cases.</p>
<p>"Watch me," he tells her.</p>
<p>The outcome of this will be the same whether Emily has faith in him or not, so she goes with historical precedent. There's plenty of it. Reid can build a profile from what he's got, and that means he can finally do more than let himself be dragged helplessly through the gauntlet. Given a puzzle, the man is unstoppable.</p>
<p>The conclusion she chooses to draw is this: Spencer Reid is in more trouble than she can currently contemplate, but he is totally committed to getting the hostages home alive. He may be badly damaged, but he is still brilliant, and he is absolutely capable of solving this game.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you're a game theorist, please understand that I spent a lot of time reading and tried very hard.  Thank you.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Luke II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Immediate spoilers for One Hundred Years of Solitude in the first paragraph.  It's a good book!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Considering that Luke is in a book club with a murderer and one of the most prolific killers the BAU has ever seen, it isn't one of the morning's biggest revelations that they've all finished reading <em>One Hundred Years of Solitude</em>. Reid hadn't chosen a particularly uplifting book to follow <em>the Brothers Karamazov</em>, and Cat's metaphor about its conclusion had immediately struck Luke with a powerful sense of foreboding. The story ends with a cursed secret message finally decoded after a century, scouring the existence and memory of the protagonists from the face of the earth. Luke had been gutted by the novel's hopelessly bleak resolution, and today's finale is probably going to feel a lot worse.</p><p>His work frequently brings him into close contact with the confounding and the horrific, but this morning has been uniquely awful. Given that everything in the interrogation room is being recorded, he can't see how Reid's lack of confession will make any difference in the end. The broad strokes of the secret message are easy enough to decipher, regardless of whether they've been spoken out loud. Luke really wants to believe that there's a way this doesn't end in a life sentence. He also desperately wants to trust that Reid isn't using the Simmons family and the BAU as pawns in a depraved maneuver to avoid consequences. His confidence in one of those hopes is far stronger than the other.</p><p>Luke has been acquainted with his former colleague on paper now for much longer than he has in person. Reid has existed as envelopes full of scrawling chicken-scratch waiting in his mailbox for years, and they'd spent only a brief window of time in each other's physical presence. It doesn't matter; Luke is still pretty sure he knows him.</p><p>This is the man who'd written lyrically and with great passion, for pages, on the philosophical ramifications of Dostoevsky's central theme that everyone is responsible for everyone else. The one who couldn't conceal how fiercely he wished he could agree with Dmitri Karamazov, days before an unjust murder conviction, when he made a profound claim: a man buried in a mine can be happy never seeing the sun again, so long as he knows that it's still there. Luke has done the mental math, and that particular letter came from somebody who'd been locked alone in administrative segregation for months on end.</p><p>Trapped without any avenue of escape, Reid committed murder to preserve his own life. With the knowledge of each calculated step Adams took to drive him to the act, Luke is incapable of unbiased judgment. He thinks it's still possible that the Reid who wrote all those letters isn't so inconsistent with the one he's watching now. He sees him staring directly into near certainty of a lifetime spent in darkness, refusing to abandon the burden of responsibility for the lives of people he doesn't know and will never meet. Luke prays he's not putting his faith in the wrong place, and that Spencer has enough strength and sanity to pull it off.</p><p>Reid is hunched forward in his chair, red-eyed stare fixed on his adversary and knuckles pressed against his chin. He's wildly disheveled and damp with sweat, but Luke still recognizes the unintentional pose. Reid had mentioned a Rodin statue to him once, as a metaphor he'd made in his letter about the genius Karamazov brother, Ivan, in his meeting with the devil. The Thinker, he'd explained, was designed to sit in contemplation within a larger sculptural piece, the Gates of Hell. Maybe Luke is being melodramatic, but it feels pretty apt as he watches the two players regard one another.</p><p>"What do you want?" Reid wonders, his single-minded focus locked on Adams. It isn't a question that he expects her to answer honestly.</p><p>"I want you to make your decision."</p><p>"It won't be an insignificant secret," he continues to himself, knuckles tapping against his jaw. "Nothing small or trivial. It's bound to hurt, and it needs to be meaningful. To you, in particular. What do I have left, and what do you want?"</p><p>"You should just go with the obvious answer, but maybe you're too much of a coward to fess up." She extends her arms out behind her on the table and relaxes back with a sphinx-like smile. "It's probably not much of a secret anymore, Spencer. The truth won't set you free, but some honesty might relieve that troubled conscience of yours."</p><p>Reid doesn't take the bait. "You didn't think I'd get this far. It's the long shot, and the other outcomes would have all been satisfying. You'd win no matter how I picked. Three versions of me that could make three choices, but I'm the fourth. Who am I?"</p><p>"There's not really enough time today for an existential crisis. You've got the rest of your life to spend in solitary contemplation."</p><p>His frown deepens. "As much as possible, we have to make the mess ourselves. It's your MO. It's why it all had to start when I went to Mexico: I was telling lies about it. It's important to you that I choose to cross the lines myself, and I literally went over the border." His shoes patter a short rhythm against the linoleum as he thinks. "You seem very offended by my lying, but you've spent most of your life doing worse. False identities to engage your targets, deception to drive them in the wrong directions. You find ways to manipulate your accomplices, and it's not usually by telling the truth."</p><p>He's right. Cat's file shows a lengthy history of deceit. Lying was never the major motivation when she went after her victims or double-crossed her customers. Her real hangup, the one that helped trap her, was violence against women. She's only ever managed to frame Reid for that, though she came inches from driving him there today.</p><p>Cat's gaze is unblinking. "I've told you before, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. I've never once lied to you, from the moment we met. I never will."</p><p>Luke doesn't know how to fit this vow into the profile he has of her, but the sincerity is terrifying. Her sadistic playfulness is unsettling, but it helps obscure something much worse. What its absence reveals in her flat dark eyes is endless in its cruelty and insatiably hungry.</p><p>Reid rubs at his face with both hands, lost in thought. He looks exhausted. Panic attacks are both physically and emotionally draining, and he's running well over twenty-four hours without sleep on what must be the most stressful day of his life. Sleep deprivation results in cognitive impairment and poor judgement. He doesn't have room for more of either of those things.</p><p>"I want a hint," Reid decides. It's not an angry demand. He announces it in the same offhand tone he'd once used whenever he'd settled on another cup of coffee. If he thinks this will get him anywhere, he's functioning at a worse mental deficit than even his recent disturbing behaviour has indicated.</p><p>Cat's a little stunned at the casual request, though it knocks a laugh out of her. "I'm sure you do, sweetie. Name a reason why I'd give you one."</p><p>"Games are more rewarding when there's a possibility of failure."</p><p>"You're the one who cheats at Connect Four." She scoots closer to the edge of the table, finding a superior position for casting down disparaging looks. "This isn't Mario Kart, and you're not going to get a blue shell just because you've fallen so far behind."</p><p>"One hint, hotter or colder," Reid says, his determination set like concrete.</p><p>"If I haven't already led you to your conclusion today, you won't make it. You have literally nothing to offer me in exchange for a clue."</p><p>Reid releases a pained, shaky exhale. Then he stretches back, tosses an arm over the top of the chair, and extends his lanky legs out in front of him to cross at the ankles. It's a pose of calm confidence, and it looks completely insane on him. He's a reflection of how Cat has acted all morning, sitting in her chair.</p><p>"You asked for an apology earlier about the lie I told. I'll give you one, for a hint."</p><p>The response is immediate. Adams is unable to hide how electrifying she finds the proposition. She sits up hastily, uncrossing her legs to dangle over the edge of the table. Her calves momentarily brush Reid's knees where they straddle them, but he doesn't flinch away as she eyes him with fascination and disbelief.</p><p>"It had better be the best apology of your life, doctor," she says, feigning skepticism.</p><p>He shakes his head. "No, I'm going to need a more explicit agreement than that. You'd never lie to me, right?"</p><p>Cat's pleased that he believes her, or maybe that he's sidestepped another trap. "If your apology shows enough genuine insight into what you did wrong, I'll give you your hint."</p><p>Reid chews at his bottom lip, examining Adams appraisingly. He seems to have her measure about the significance of his lie, but Luke would never have predicted this. He tries to imagine how much it would cost for him to apologize to Daniel Cullen. Three innocent lives would do it, but his insides churn at the idea.</p><p>Reid takes a few more of those practiced breaths of his, steeling himself for the task ahead. Next to Luke, Rossi's doing something similar.</p><p>"For most of your life, everything was about your father. You spent years looking everywhere for him, and you trace what you've become right back to him. You hated what he did to you and your mother, and you wanted to make him pay for it. But you couldn't find him no matter how hard you tried, so other men became proxies for your revenge."</p><p>The delivery is familiar because it's a profile. Adams is unimpressed. It's an old one and she's heard it from him before.</p><p>"We profiled your primary motivation as rage, but I don't think so anymore. I never offered you a chance to kill your father, just the possibility he'd see more prison time and an opportunity to talk to him. Talking wouldn't have been good enough if you were only compelled by anger." An ugly thing crosses his face for a split second, but he shoves it aside. "He hurt you, and you wanted to let him know more than anything in the world. It might even be better, for him to really understand what he'd made of you and have to live with it."</p><p>His eyes search hers intently. Adams is unaffected, except for when his brief slip reveals that he personally finds their conversation inadequate. She likes that a lot.</p><p>"I lied to you about the thing you wanted most of all. You're never going to get to see him." It's almost a taunt. "Someone could make the argument that this is all transference: I promised that you could show dad how much he hurt you, but since you can't, you'll just have to show me instead. All you really wanted for us to do today was talk, and he went to prison for manslaughter too, didn't he? It wasn't nearly enough after everything we've both put you through."</p><p>"It's going to take a slightly different approach if you're trying to get me to call you daddy." Adams shoots him a salacious grin before reflecting, "I've made you a lot more like him than you used to be, I guess."</p><p>There might be some truth to Reid's insight, but it doesn't strike any real nerves. It's also nowhere near an apology.</p><p>He waves a dismissive hand. "I don't really think that's at the heart of it, though. You treat men like playthings, but you don't usually play actual games with them. You just ruin them like you've ruined me." It's delivered as an unemotional fact, and it leaves Luke aching while Adams smiles affectionately.</p><p>"The first time we met, the game had rules and boundaries. Today too. It's atypical behaviour." His perplexed expression is distinctly frog-like. "Our first game meant something to you, but the problem was that it didn't mean anything to me. It was just another day at work."</p><p>Cat purses her lips when he pauses to gauge her response. She swings her legs like a bored child, gesturing for him to get on with it.</p><p>"You were generous enough to offer me something you thought was fair, just for the fun of it. We both said that we liked games, and you wanted a real competition." He schools his face into something earnest. "There was nothing wrong with me wanting to catch you. What was wrong was that I acted dishonestly in order to win. I made a big promise and then I broke it. I think I must have made you cry."</p><p>"You did," Adams agrees.</p><p>Reid gnaws on his lip again, and Luke suspects this time it's to hold back a smile. "I didn't just lie, though. I stole everything from you. First I helped shut down your criminal network until you were out of allies, and then I cheated and took your freedom away. I stuffed you into horrible little cages where you aren't even treated like a person anymore."</p><p>He's speaking with false sympathy and watching with hard eyes to see if it hurts. Luke doesn't like it, and he doesn't know if Reid is acting like her intentionally.</p><p>"You can't look for your dad like you used to, and you never get to do the things that you want. Your whole future, gone forever. Nothing but the same miserable days full of the same exhausting bullshit in the same demeaning place, over and over until they finally put a needle in your arm. It must have felt very unfair at first." His expression goes sour. "I bet it doesn't anymore."</p><p>"Not so much." Cat doesn't bother biting back her own smile.</p><p>He must be tasting bile, but he puts on a conciliatory tone. It's good, though everyone knows it's an act. "I used your dad to get to you, so you used my mom to hurt me. I sent you to prison and you've repaid me the favour—five-to-ten just wasn't good enough. I cheated at our first game so you've crushed me in the rematch, and you've done it as unfairly as you possibly could. Then you pushed the envelope a little more whenever you had the chance, just to make it worse. That's either the punishing-the-opponent standard or the Hobbesian trap, I guess. All because I lied to you."</p><p>Reid stops abruptly and leans forward, dropping his hands to his knees. He's wearing a mask of humility, but it can't quite reach contrition. "You made it fair again. Tit for tat; now we're even. I deserved it because I did it to you first. My choices are the things that got me here, right?"</p><p>Cat's watching him thoughtfully, and she's becoming responsive. She has the open body language of an attentive listener: leaned towards him, torso exposed, hands open. It's not enough yet.</p><p>Reid knows it isn't either. Luke can't see the internal struggle and he can't imagine it. He presses onward, and it must feel like pressing directly into a bruise. "Cat, if I made you feel the way that I do today, I apologize. I didn't know it was possible to feel this badly, and I would change a lot of things if I could. You've made my errors extremely clear to me."</p><p>She's weighing him, empty palms tipping up and down at her sides like a scale. If he comes out of this with nothing, Luke worries that he might lose it again. He didn't expect Reid to get this far, but he doesn't have anything else he can use as leverage if it fails. If he can't win without a hint, then this is his only shot.</p><p>"You've never once lied to me," Reid says, eyes wide while his bloodless hands clench hard at his knees. "I swear on my mother, I'll never lie to you again. I'm sorry, and I need you to forgive me."</p><p>Something about Adams shifts at the promise, but she takes her time. She forces him to wait in order to savour the control she has over him. Reid sits with a deadened expression while she enjoys the sense of power that comes from judgement.</p><p>"And when I asked, you said it wasn't going to happen." Cat jostles his leg with the edge of her foot playfully. "Apology accepted. You missed the bullseye a few times, but you get full points for participation. Do you want to know if the thing you almost guessed was right?"</p><p>"I'm not going to waste it on something I already know. Given the scope of possibilities, the optimal use of my question here would be to narrow my field of inquiry in half. Run the start of a logarithmic search, essentially."</p><p>"Okay, nerd." She rolls her eyes theatrically. "What do you want to ask me?"</p><p>Reid spends a very long time pinching the bridge of his nose, and Luke realizes that he hasn't got any plan here. He really has no idea what his own secret could be. Adams is a narcissist, so he already knows it has to be something that involves or relates to her. That means it's either about the past four years or their first meeting. If Reid is out of secrets in both of those places, then the Connect Four epiphany is the delusion of a very ill man clinging to a legacy of successful logical leaps.</p><p>If that's the case, they need him to ask about the secret he was going to guess and then make his confession. Any other choice ends in three funerals. Luke is a man of action, and helplessly watching this unfold is torture.</p><p>"What type of dipping sauce do you want for our pizza?" Cat asks. "I'm going with creamy garlic."</p><p>Instead of responding, Reid leans back to stare at the ceiling in distracted silence, fingers beating an irregular tempo against his sternum. It used to reassure Luke to see him deep in thought, knowing that he was working on a solution to whatever problem the team faced. Now it has JJ with her arms crossed like they're the only things holding her together and Prentiss maiming her hand in her mouth. Luke wonders if Reid's doubting himself or if he's too irrationally confident for second-guessing.</p><p>Cat's patience has its limits. Several minutes of boredom see her nudging Reid with her foot for attention.</p><p>"I'm thinking," he mutters, irritation flaring at the interruption.</p><p>"What are you thinking about?"</p><p>"Game theory and everything you've said today," Reid replies to the acoustic panelling above him. He relapses into deliberation for a few more agonizing minutes until Cat toes at him again.</p><p>"Any conclusions?"</p><p>He glares into the fluorescent lights overhead. "I'm constructing a hypothesis. Either I'm right or I'm very stupid."</p><p>"Maybe you're both," she teases. "Share with the class."</p><p>"You'll ask me questions, and I have to figure out where you're leading me based on my replies. I haven't been thinking about you, but I will. You have a lot of confidence in me." It's a rapid-fire recap of this morning, and his hands contort in the air as he delivers it. "We're walking through a simple case of cause and effect, you want some honest self-assessment, the rehabilitation isn't working—"</p><p>"I guess your memory is fine because today was a negative event?"</p><p>"—apply the outlook to my future, you push the line and I do the long jump." His hands clutch decisively on that one. "I'm a very predictable man. You want me to make my decision, and if you haven't already led me to it today, I won't."</p><p>"What's the theory, then?"</p><p>"We're playing a sequential game. You choose your move, then I make mine. Cause and effect. This is the first time I'm actually informed of your actions, which means that it has strategic implications. If I consider today on the whole as the final move you've made, it ought to direct my own gameplay. I need to follow where you've led me. All gas, no brakes, you said. Cat," he asks the ceiling, "is this about something you actually know, or is it another prediction?"</p><p>"What do you mean?" she asks very innocently.</p><p>He tilts himself back upright, immediately meeting her eyes. He's uncertain, scowling sharply with indecision and resentment.</p><p>"The other answer was based on what you thought I might do, too. You like to see how I react, and your primary interest has been in getting me to escalate. My secret isn't something that's happened in the past, is it? You want me to take another jump based off of where you've moved the line today."</p><p>In the silence that follows, Adams beams her biggest smile yet as Luke despairs. That's maybe the thinnest interpretation of a secret he could imagine, and this was Reid's only hint. He has no idea what he'll possibly say to Matt when they get home. Cat Adams is too good at her games, and the BAU is never going to recover from today unless Reid backtracks to his first answer and it ends up being right.</p><p>"Pretty hot, " Cat announces.</p><p>Luke sways in unexpected relief, but the feeling is short-lived. What the hell does she want? Is the secret an action, a belief, another promise? Whatever the leap is, Reid has to take it or they lose. It's going to be something brutal, and she's already got him to kill someone. Luke can't guess where the next jump lands, but he's sure it isn't anywhere he wants Spencer ending up.</p><p>Reid's got the look of a cornered unsub, the type that makes terrible decisions. "Where would you like me to go this time, Cat?"</p><p>"What are you willing to do?" She's not smiling.</p><p>He shrugs, but there's nothing indifferent about it. "I'll burn this fucking room down as long as you're locked in here with me."</p><p>Luke doesn't doubt him. She's pushed him too far, and he'd set himself on fire if the flames caught her too. Reid feels like he's got nothing left to lose once this ends. It's a twist on a very familiar scenario from normal cases.</p><p>"How about the building and all the other inmates locked up in it too?" she asks.</p><p>He stares at her, and the only thing Luke can read off of him other than hatred is a mind fully occupied by calculation.</p><p>"The fun thing about your little apology," Cat murmurs, leaning in closer and letting her legs slide against his, "is that you promised not to lie again. I would have let you guess and not mean it before, but now it has to be true."</p><p>Shit. She'd had a bomb rigged when they'd first met, and this situation is just as explosive.</p><p>"What do you want?" Reid asks again, and it's an aggressive demand this time.</p><p>"It's your secret, not mine."</p><p>Reid's thin veneer of calm cracks wide open, and all that anger starts bubbling out again. "Oh, what do I want?" What's next isn't a laugh or a sob, just a pained expulsion of sound torn deep from his chest. "What could I, when you've taken everything away?" His fury and distress are back on display, and Adams is watching him like he's the only thing in the world worthy of her attention.</p><p>She wants this answer very badly, Luke realizes. She didn't think she might actually get it, but she's had hopes. If Reid can see it and he pulls himself together, this is something he could use against her. He might be able to convince her whatever secret she's looking for is the truth.</p><p>"But I took everything from you first, and look at what you've managed to accomplish," Reid spits. Luke can almost see him connecting invisible dots. "I want to win," he decides, voice grim. "I think I'm getting the gist of it."</p><p>Adams gives him one of her fond little smiles this time. "It's a specific secret, Spencer, not the gist of one."</p><p>Cat swings her legs some more, observing him very closely. Whatever's running through his head is making him incredibly troubled, and at rapid speed. He's become a seething bundle of kinetic energy, one leg motoring up and down against the floor while his hands clamp in and out of white-knuckled fists. He's agitated and restless, in a way that reminds Luke of boxers before a match or undisciplined soldiers in the moments before active gunfire breaks out.</p><p>"I need more information from you." Reid's body is almost vibrating with apprehension.</p><p>"I don't have to tell you anything."</p><p>"That's fine," he grinds out through clenched teeth.</p><p>With all the urgency of a man reaching into a fire to retrieve something very valuable, he extends a hand to Adams. He holds it there, hanging in the air. Everyone's eyes burn on it.</p><p>There is a long empty moment. Reid wiggles his fingers insistently, like a stranger trying to entice Roxy over at the dog park. Cat scrutinizes his palm for an excruciating length of time, but Reid doesn't waver.</p><p>Finally, very carefully, she slides her hand into his grasp. It's much smaller than his, yet capable of so many terrible things. After a few seconds of consideration, the repulsive woman steps down from the table and settles herself right into his lap.</p><p>No one is expecting this development, Reid included. He stiffens, face flashing with hostility, but he wills himself slack underneath her as she tangles her free hand into the collar of his shirt. They stare at each other nose to nose, Reid with searing intensity and Cat in malicious amusement. Luke is about to abandon any further attempts at interpreting today's insanity when Reid's hand rotates it's way out of her grip to press three fingers with clinical efficiency at the pulse point of her wrist.</p><p>"Your heart rate is extremely elevated," he says frankly when Cat blinks down at his fingers, bemused. "What's your baseline?"</p><p>"Oh doctor, I just don't know," Adams purrs, quickly recovering from her initial confusion. She's finding this unexpected new strategy of his very charming. "You'll have to <em>guess</em>."</p><p>If Luke's right about what's happening, then Reid is trying to do something absolutely absurd. He has a theory and wants to play human polygraph to see if he's on the right track. There's no way it should work—polygraphs are already unreliable, and this isn't exactly a controlled environment. Even if he can somehow interpret her heart rate with any accuracy, she might get just as excited about him being wrong as she will if he closes in on the actual answer.</p><p>Adams is right there, though. He's close enough to monitor any discrepancies in her microexpressions, breathing rate and pupil dilation as well as her pulse. That's a lot of information to work with. If anyone could figure out what this particular psychopath is actually feeling, a genius with over a decade of history as a behavioural analyst might have a chance.</p><p>Reid's displeasure at the lack of a control measurement is as obvious as his disgust at the degree of contact he's in with Adams, but he decides to work with what's available. "You were right. I missed some things in my apology, Cat."</p><p>"You mean in your profile, Dr. Reid?"</p><p>"Yeah, my profile. You," he says, looking right into her pitiless eyes, "are almost always the smartest person in any room—"</p><p>"Smartest person in this one."</p><p>"—that you walk into. It took years and piles of bodies before anyone put things together, and even then you were one step ahead of us. You only walked into our trap because you knew who we were and thought that you could outsmart us."</p><p>"I could have."</p><p>"If I'd have played honestly, maybe. You'd done your homework, you knew I was smart too. I think you were very bored of not having the chance to lose, Cat. Playing solved games can be a nice diversion, but it's much better to have a challenge." His eyes are in constant motion, scanning her face the way they'd once flown over thousands of words per minute. "You looked at me and you saw someone who might actually be worth your time, right?"</p><p>A smile sweeps across Cat's face, but she doesn't say anything.</p><p>"You realized that it was unfair, though, and not just because I cheated. I had to be punished for that, but you also had to reassess the entire game. I had so many intermediate aims I needed to accomplish: save the hostages, avoid an explosion, protect myself and my coworkers. I even wanted to get you out of there alive." His lip curls with scorn for that mistake. "You didn't have nearly as many concerns. How could it ever be a balanced match if I'm not focused on one primary objective, or if I'm unwilling to make the type of moves it takes to win properly?"</p><p>Reid adjusts his fingers against the junction of her wrist and waits for a moment, head cocked to the side like he's listening.</p><p>"I've been looking at it the wrong way, haven't I? Gideon had to beat me over and over at chess before I picked up enough skills to actually compete. You paid me back for lying, but you've also been teaching me how to play. Holding my hand until I learned enough."</p><p>She's holding it right now, her grasp gentle as he tracks her heart rate. Her free hand slides along his chest to his arm, where it settles to softly trace along the thin lines of scars she's given him. Their positions and unrelenting focus on one another create a nauseating sense of forced intimacy. They're both flushed and breathing heavily, and only Reid is that way out of anger.</p><p>"It's why I always have to make the choices myself: they're filters. A good man would have died. How boring," he growls, wounded by everything he's lost. "Today, the best version of me would have told you the other secret. The liar would have lied, and a coward would have done nothing." He watches her under tight-knit brows. "I'm not any of those men."</p><p>"You promised me—"</p><p>"That's just basic deductive logic, Cat. Keep up," he says derisively. "What do you think I'm going to do now that I can't have what I really want? I'll just want something else instead, and I'm going to work very hard to get it. I'm going to play by some different rules, too."</p><p>"You're all talk," Adams scoffs.</p><p>"After the fun little journey of self-discovery you've taken me on, I think we both know that's not true. This isn't about getting even for you, Cat. It's about being equal. I still have some catching up to do, but I'm sure you'll keep helping me with that. Look how far I've come already," he hisses. He's not making any attempts to calm himself down, and something bitter and malevolent is taking the reins. "You wanted my attention. You have it. Any time you think of me, you can be certain I'm thinking about you. I've got so much time I'm going to need to fill, and I have some ideas." He bends in close to her ear. "I'm going to ruin what's left of your pathetic little life. It's only fair."</p><p>Luke is pretty sure that Reid's telling her what he thinks she wants to hear. That he's pressing right into all of his anger and pain to say whatever he needs to in order to win.</p><p>It's alarmingly convincing, though.</p><p>"Do you think there's anywhere they can lock up either of us where I won't find a way to get to you? I'm very good at problem-solving, and I won't let anything stand in my way anymore. I'll figure things out; I'm smarter than every asshole at the Bureau of Prisons combined. I'll make some new friends. Maybe I'll burn the whole fucking building down—"</p><p>"You're lying!" Adams is upset, and it's not a pretense for once.</p><p>"I said <em>maybe</em>, baby! Looks like we're both playing a guessing game now," he snarls. "You'll have to figure it out, and you lose if you're wrong. Isn't it fun?" He's mirroring Adams with a caustic grin and vicious words, and Luke feels ill.</p><p>"The hostages will die if I guess wrong, Spencer."</p><p>Emily's phone is ringing. She doesn't pick up.</p><p>Reid's fingers adjust their position again. "Oh, you weren't listening. I told you that I want to win. I'll know I've beaten you, and you will too when I'm turning your life into a fucking nightmare. <em>Maybe</em> I really don't give a shit about your consolation prizes anymore."</p><p>This is much better acting than his apology, but it makes sense that it would be. When Reid had spoken of his time in ad seg, he'd said that he'd shouted monstrous things at the man in the cell next to him, and had hated him so much he'd meant every word. That's what this is. It's unnerving, but he's playing to win his actual objectives. Luke holds firm to his belief that it's still the Simmons family.</p><p>Adams is on the same page as Luke, though she's enthralled by the act. She closes up more of the limited space between them, moving her other hand to rest on his shoulder. "I think you're trying to cheat again, Spencer."</p><p>Luke's phone vibrates from a text, and he spares it a brief glance. It's Garcia, with something about a prison guard named Wilkins. It's not important right now.</p><p>"Daddy issues, control issues, trust issues; what isn't wrong with you? It's almost sad." He has a contemptuous smile as he says it, but it drops away in an instant. "You don't believe me? Fine. I'll tell you a little bonus secret, and you can decide if I'm lying. That way we both get a hint today."</p><p>He takes hold of the wrist he's been monitoring and drags her hand up to his neck, guiding it to the spot where his carotid artery sits. Then he jabs his fingers to the pulse at her own throat with enough force that it elicits an uncontrolled cough from her. He never breaks eye contact, maintaining his stare while he builds up his nerve for something. Maybe he's just fueling himself with enough outrage to continue.</p><p>"Are you paying attention? Some of those bad things I did? I didn't mind so much. One in particular," he almost chokes on the admission, "I enjoyed. I wasn't doing all that heroin because I felt badly about it, Cat. Am I lying to you?" That last question comes out like a threat.</p><p>The best liars always mix truth into their deceptions. Luke wants to walk away from this. It's too much.</p><p>Whatever it is Cat sees or feels, it works. The expression on her face is something new today. It's soft, almost vulnerable. She takes her hand from Reid's throat to cup his cheek.</p><p>"No, I'm not lying. What am I supposed to do with that information, Cat?" He's shaking to pieces under her, and she strokes the scruff on his jaw in what might be an attempt to soothe him or upset him further. "You only ever give me the worst options. It wasn't something I ever wanted to know about myself, and I'm very upset about it. I'm going to make you understand just how much."</p><p>"I don't know if you're—"</p><p>He keeps ranting. "No more little league, Cat. You've been bored? I'll keep you entertained. You won't have the time or energy to mope about dad ever again. If you're lonely, I'll be there. You haven't left me alone for years." He digs his fingers a little deeper into her neck, just to make her squirm. "You might want to consider having your lawyer drop those appeals, because the death penalty is going to look like a great option once I get started with you."</p><p>Cat's shaking now too. He's managed to convince her. Luke's less certain than he's ever been. The dark promises pouring out of Reid's mouth are a poisonous mixture of loathing, desire, and rage, and those sentiments are coming from a real place. Adams has been given exactly what she wants, even if Reid has found the answer he needs out of this to win.</p><p>"You want to know what I'm thinking? What I want, now that we've got a level playing field and we're so well-matched? We can call this one a draw, given the circumstances." He's so close that his nose bumps hers when he takes a decisive inhale. "Would you like to know my secret, Cat?"</p><p>She nods, out of words. Her eyes are huge and wet, gleaming unnaturally under the ugly fluorescent lighting of the interrogation room.</p><p>Reid leans forward, breath ragged against her ear. "I'd like to play another game with you."</p><p>There's a moment where the pair simply stare at one another, sharing the same oxygen. Adams is dumbstruck. Carefully, Reid's trembling hand leaves its place at her throat. He reaches out to the table with a long arm to pull the phone from its cradle, then presses it into her waiting hands. She drops his unwavering gaze only to look at the buttons she presses with unsteady fingers.</p><p>"No cheating," Reid says as the dial tone rings against Cat's ear. Luke is unsure if it's meant to be an admonishment or a promise.</p><p>"Hi," she says when someone picks up. Her voice sounds bizarrely human, lacking its usual spite. "Change in plans. You can send them home."</p><p>The phone drops to the floor when the other caller hangs up. Cat wraps her arms around Reid's shoulders and clings to him tightly, tucking her head under his chin.</p><p>Garcia has a trace on the line, of course. There will be a rapid response from law enforcement back in DC, and they just might catch Adams' accomplices in time if luck is on their side and the call isn't another trap. Luke's certain it's genuine; she wouldn't have lied to Reid about it. He's caught between a shocked sense of unreality and a pervasive, bone-weary exhaustion.</p><p>Emily's already dialing Penelope, and JJ has found the nearest chair to collapse into with her head in her hands. Rossi stands motionless at the mirror with Luke.</p><p>Reid remains sitting in the interrogation room with the slack, distant expression of a combatant who has somehow survived in the midst of an aerial bombardment, dazed and deafened in the smoking ruins of his own life. He hasn't made any move to untangle himself from Adams yet. His hands hover in the air like he's not sure what to do with them.</p><p>Nestled against Reid's collarbone, Cat's smile is blissful. "It's just you and me, babe. We're going to have so much fun together." Her fingers card gently through the hair at the nape of his neck.</p><p>"No, we aren't," Reid says, in a soft but indisputable tone.</p><p>Luke finds the iron conviction in his voice reassuring, and allows himself a second to try to sort through his own staggering relief, overwhelming loss, and utter horror at the day's events. He closes his eyes and sags under the onslaught of competing emotions.</p><p>This is a mistake, because Reid almost immediately follows his statement with violence.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Spencer I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This bitch got way too long, so I'm splitting it into two chapters.  Trigger warning for POV violence :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Spencer Reid was very young, he didn't learn how to walk across a tightrope.</p>
<p>He tried. He would climb up to the top of the backyard fence and doggedly attempt to balance his way across it, much to his mother's concern and amusement. He'd spent hours in the library absorbing information about the laws of physics governing the skill, but it made no difference in the end. An object's ability to resist change in motion around an axis is called its moment of inertia, and it always passed Spencer right by. Despite his best efforts, it didn't take much torque to steal his footing from underneath him. Angular acceleration would have its way, and he'd need to dust himself off and try again.</p>
<p>Spencer is much older now, and he still hasn't figured it out. It seems like it ought to be a simple task for a man without freedom of movement to remain inert, but the moment continues to slip through his fingers. He finds himself unable to slow down; acceleration has become the defining feature of his survival. Spencer has long since abandoned any attempts at balance and relied on sheer increase in forward momentum instead, hoping that it might manage to carry him to the other side of the rift that has torn his life apart.</p>
<p>There's a Dylan song he won't listen to because it reminds him of a simple truth: every man must fall. He drops further and hits the ground harder each time he does, and eventually he can't just brush the dirt off. In order to keep going, Spencer has to stop worrying about laws other than the ones Newton described. The rate of change of a body's momentum over time is directly proportional to the force applied, so he steps back out on the wire and forces himself to do whatever it takes; to keep running faster, fighting harder, and to lie and lie and lie.</p>
<p>In time, he forces himself to do something much worse than that. He plummets, and he knows on impact that the damage is irreparable. It's difficult to get back up when he can't stand himself, but Spencer does it eventually.</p>
<p>Despite being so badly broken, he keeps trying. For a while it seems like he might actually make it across, but he's misunderstood the fundamental nature of his predicament. The chasm is much too wide, and the tightrope was only strung across it as a joke. Freedom has always been beyond his reach, and his relentless pursuit of it has just broadened the distance. Today, Spencer finally realizes that his best efforts were unnecessary steps he'd added to the very simple process of leaping off a cliff.</p>
<p>Cat Adams smells like toothpaste and the same brand of soap that T-Rex always buys from commissary. She's soft and warm, and her touches are far gentler than any he's encountered in years. Her head fits under his chin like a puzzle piece, and her fingers send strange jolts of frisson tracking upwards along his spine as they play with the curls at the nape of his neck. It feels nice, which makes it the cruelest thing she has done this morning.</p>
<p>"It's just you and me, babe," she says, lips skimming along his clavicle. "We're going to have so much fun together."</p>
<p>Spencer had thought his capacity for hatred had reached its limit with Paul Herzog, but he'd been working off a flawed model of the universe. His loathing for Cat is infinite and expanding, and she reciprocates it equally. They have become locked tight in each other's orbit, and even he can't move fast enough to reach escape velocity. He's trapped again.</p>
<p>There had been no real need to keep track of Cat's heart, because while all those rabid words were foaming out of his mouth, it had beat in unison with his own. By the time he'd figured out what his secret was, he had already been poisoned by it. Spencer has always had a talent for finding out the truth, and he's uncovered the hideous fact that they both want the same thing.</p>
<p>They can't have it.</p>
<p>It's imperative that Spencer doesn't play another game with her. Between the two of them the collateral damage would be catastrophic, and he'd promised himself after Millburn that he would try to only hurt the people he intended to. An honest self-assessment determines that he lacks self-control, and the Hobbesian trap is demanding him to escalate. Given enough time in ad seg to face the consequences of their combined actions, Spencer knows that his last threads of restraint will inevitably unravel.</p>
<p>He will never move past this, because there is nothing else ahead of him. She has torn his freedom and his friendships away with today's public flaying, and what remains of him is becoming as vindictive as she is from the magnitude of his loss. He will hyperfixate on her, and it will consume him. If they both walk away from this room, then eventually, just like with the heroin, the outcome is perfectly predictable. He will find a way to make an opening move, and then they'll commit some real atrocities as they play together.</p>
<p>The rampaging thing that lives in his lizard brain drew its conclusion quite some time ago, and a consensus has been reached by the frayed executive functions that usually try so hard to keep it tied down. It took a brute force algorithm to strongly solve Connect Four, and this isn't so different. He tries to be gentle as he breaks the disappointing news to her. What comes next won't be.</p>
<p>"No, we aren't."</p>
<p>He doesn't need the tightrope anymore. Spencer shows her exactly how well he's learned to jump.</p>
<p>Cat is still embracing him as he bolts to his feet, and she doesn't expect it when she slides from his lap. Before she can truly respond to his grip at her throat, her collision against the wall has already knocked the breath from her lungs. The one-way mirror rattles as he viciously repeats the motion.</p>
<p>Her hands are clawing new lines into his forearms as she struggles wildly in his grasp, condemning eyes locked on his. <em>Carotids</em>, he thinks stupidly at her, bearing all his weight down on her trachea and tossing his head back to avoid her flailing arms. His thumbs are useless, fumbling along her sternocleidomastoids in a desperate search. He'd had his fingers there one fucking minute ago. <em>Carotids</em>. He won't have time otherwise.</p>
<p>Her feet are kicking savagely against his shins, but he hardly registers the pain. There is the furious, oceanic roar of blood crashing through his ears, her little breathless noises, and distant shouting. His idiot thumbs have found their targets, and the heartbeat underneath them still thrums in frantic tandem with his own.</p>
<p>A knee meets his upper thigh with bruising force, so he presses his body closer to trap her legs with his. He loses leverage, but it only takes five pounds per square inch of pressure to fully occlude the carotid arteries. Seven to fourteen seconds until unconsciousness and maybe two minutes to brain death, but how can he possibly maintain his grasp on both the passage of time and her evil fucking throat? The seconds are dilating, and they've been alone together in this interrogation room for a century already.</p>
<p>There are other hands suddenly scrabbling at him, trying to pull him away, and panicked voices over his shoulder that he ignores. He clutches to her, snarling, desperate as a man caught in a flash flood clinging to the riverbank. He sees awareness start to slip from her wide, understanding eyes, feels the way her body begins to go slack. He needs so much more time with her.</p>
<p>His left hand is torn from its hold and pinned to his side by strong arms that pull him backwards. He thrashes and howls, managing to drag her along with him single-handedly. There's more shouting, and the arms suddenly release. He goes to reach for her again and—</p>
<p>Every muscle in his body tries to leap off his skeleton simultaneously. He is facedown on the floor, tasting slippery copper in his mouth. The pain from his nose is blinding, and before he can fully catch his breath there's weight pressing down on him. A knee on the back of his head grinds his face into the linoleum, and the sensation sears white-hot against the insides of his closed eyes. He exhales bubbles into the blood starting to pool under his face as his hands are forced into tight cuffs behind his back.</p>
<p>He's failed. She's still breathing. Spencer chokes on despair as her pained, rasping gasps give way to a rattling noise he knows must be laughter.</p>
<p>"Daddy," she wheezes. He can hear her smile.</p>
<p>He bucks, struggling towards her voice with everything he has left, but he's too exhausted. The weight on his back only presses down harder.</p>
<p>"Stop fucking resisting or I'll tase you again!"</p>
<p>It's that goddamn US Marshal. He'd wanted to use his taser from the moment he'd taken Spencer into his custody.</p>
<p>"Please, get him up! Take him out of here, <em>please</em>." The voice is authoritative, but there's a tremor to it.</p>
<p>He knows who she is. They'd talked on the phone last Tuesday.</p>
<p>He's dragged roughly to his feet by the cuffs, and his wrists burn from the careless handling. There's blood in his eyes that he blinks through to see pale, familiar faces.</p>
<p>They're horrified by him.</p>
<p>Spencer is always trying to outrun his shame, but it slams into him more forcefully than the one-two punch of the taser and the floor. He can't look at them. He can't, he won't. He stares beyond them, at her. The marshal is pulling him towards the exit and he goes willingly, but he continues to look back.</p>
<p>She's collapsed against the wall, eyes bright as they meet his. Her little hands rub at her neck, right where his still belong.</p>
<p>The FBI and the Bureau of Prisons are going to do everything in their power to make sure that they never see each other again. As the marshal manhandles Spencer out the door, he takes one last glance at her and knows that nothing will ever be able to keep them apart.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Spencer sleeps, and he doesn't dream. When he wakes, his first thought is of Cat Adams thinking of him.</p>
<p>The marshal had dragged him through the facility and deposited him in an isolated cell at the end of an administrative hallway, ignoring Spencer's demands for his lawyer. He'd been strip-searched by a guard and left with a clean undershirt and shorts—they might consider him a suicide risk, but not enough to force him into one of those embarassing pickle suits, at least. Before he could pass out on the thin excuse for a mattress, a nurse had been there making him wash his face and examining his broken nose. She'd given him ibuprofen and a ziploc full of ice, along with a very helpful recommendation not to get tased again.</p>
<p>The unbreakable polycarbonate pane of the cell's little window is frosted, but the light suggests that afternoon will soon give way to evening. He inhales the bagged lunch that had been dropped in through the steel door's cuff-port while he was sleeping, ignoring the throbbing pain from his face. Afterwards, he reacquaints himself with the crawling pace of time spent alone in a cage.</p>
<p>Being Spencer Reid again was a tremendous mistake, and he wishes that it were yesterday when he was still Ben Williamson. It's a remarkable accomplishment to have ruined his life so thoroughly that he misses being a nobody criminal fuckup at a maximum security prison, but he's always been an overachiever.</p>
<p>Ben could be in the yard right now, high off his face with Jon-Jon and trying not to laugh as Fisher shows off a new misspelled tattoo, or listening to Killswitch and Big Dan have the same tired arguments they always do. They could all be watching a fish about to get heart-checked by a convict twice his size and bet packets of ramen over whether he'd put up a fight.</p>
<p>Ben could be up in his bunk reading a book at a completely normal, agonizingly slow pace as T-Rex's baritone voice yammers about the Appalachian Trail from below him, or he could be practicing his lateral palm shift with a worn deck of cards as he waits for count to end.</p>
<p>He could be writing letters to people who still love him.</p>
<p>Ben could even be doing laps around the track with Nixon. The miserable little man is almost a tolerable companion when he's too winded to complain about his ex-wife, or the DA that screwed him, or whatever new gripe he's developed next. That's where Spencer had been the morning he'd learned that he was a murderer, because no fake name will ever disguise him from the responsibility of his actions.</p>
<p>He hadn't enjoyed the process of homicide at all. He'd been a quivering mess of anxiety from the Wolf incident, Herzog's constant gap-toothed prowling, and the thousand ambiguous threats awaiting a single moment's weakness as they circled all around him. Spencer had run out of ideas beyond one that he knew was unforgivable. Putting the plan into action had only amplified his dread.</p>
<p>First, he'd needed to check if anyone other than Herzog had dietary restrictions that would indicate a prescription for MAOI inhibitors, and he'd managed to surreptitiously coax the information out of Jon-Jon through his kitchen job. There was nobody else apart from a straight-laced Muslim, so he'd moved forward. He'd had to slowly collect Suboxone in reasonable quantities over the harrowing span of weeks, hold onto it without being caught, then dissolve the orange strips and leach the dye from the solution with a very limited set of chemical resources. He'd needed to decide how to discreetly tamper with the heroin, then work out a way to distribute the poison evenly throughout the package in the few short minutes he had between pickup and dropoff. The last thing he'd needed was Hughes and la eMe wanting him dead too, so he'd practiced his new magic tricks exhaustively.</p>
<p>The entire endeavour had proven that he was not much more than a scampering rodent, and he had felt no differently when the package left his hands. He'd spent the day just as breathlessly terrified as he had been for months, only with the additional uncertainty of waiting. In the shower wearing only his sodden sneakers or defensively standing back-to-back with T-Rex in the chow line, he'd kept his head on a swivel and scanned the teeming masses of men around him for danger, wondering if either he or Herzog would live to see the next day.</p>
<p>He had discovered the appalling truth about himself two mornings later, jogging slow laps with Nixon under the watchful eyes of their car. Fisher had signalled them over with a tattooed hand and broken the news of the overdose, thumping Ben on the back like he'd hit a homerun at a baseball game. Even Nixon had managed a smile when he'd called him a lucky bastard.</p>
<p>The sensation of relief that had washed over Spencer had been so blissful it could have been intravenous. He was startled to discover that it was a beautiful cold February morning, and he didn't feel trapped at all. To the west, the snowy humps of the Wet Mountains were illuminated in gold by the rising sun that was making its way into the perfect bluebird sky overhead. The frigid air that burned his lungs emerged from him in puffs of dissipating vapour, and the visible evidence that he was the one still breathing made him feel powerfully, profoundly alive.</p>
<p>He continued to be afraid, of course, but the roster of dangerous things in Florence had changed forever. He'd discovered his own name in place of a new permanent redaction from the lineup. For a while, hyperaware of the ceaseless chaotic churn of his unrelentingly brutal surroundings and his position within them, Spencer felt something he could have almost characterized as freedom.</p>
<p>That night, locked in an eight-by-ten foot concrete box as he vomited into a steel toilet with his back inches from his snoring cellmate's feet, he'd realized that the sensation he had experienced was belonging. After three years of hell, he was finally right where he was meant to be.</p>
<p>Staying alive has been much easier since that day. Living with himself has been an obstacle.</p>
<p>There's no reason that the FBI needs to have that conversation with him. The Bureau of Prisons has its own Special Investigative Services to handle crimes committed internally, and they just need to pass the case over to them. The BAU doesn't need to talk to him. He doesn't want them to talk to him ever again. He has demonstrated himself capable of many things, but he doubts that he could endure it. Even the silent judgement of the one-way mirror had been too much.</p>
<p>Spencer thinks about Cat Adams thinking about him, and he hates her most of all for making them watch. He'd worked tirelessly to remain a blurred afterimage fading slowly from their retinas—a trick of the light long after it had gone. Their eyes are wide open now, and he has no more illusions left to offer.</p>
<p>The phantom sensation of Cat's throat in his hands makes his stomach roil, and he swallows down bile when he thinks of the look he'd seen on Rossi's face.</p>
<p>For a while, nothing in particular happens. He shreds the garbage from his lunch and prods at his nose, ruminating over the fact that Cat was right. Regardless of her machinations caging him in tighter and tighter, he's always acted with absolute freedom while making his reprehensible choices. Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him.</p>
<p>The light from the window continues to wane. Eventually, two pairs of footsteps echo down the silent hall. Feminine, he thinks, and not the regulation boots of a CO's uniform. They stop when they reach his cell. He waits as the lock is unbolted, knowing that he'll likely be playing a very significant game against whatever team is on the other side.</p>
<p>Spencer has a tendency to expect the worst, so it comes as no real surprise that when the door swings open, JJ and Emily are there.</p>
<p>As they step inside the cell, they stare at him like he might be an unpredictable wild animal. He stares back, certain he is. He's wanted to see their faces again for so long. It's a moment he'd imagined ten thousand times, whether he was idling during lockdown, stupefied by loneliness in ad seg, or bleeding out on icy pavement. Even now, sitting in the federal government's underwear after an attempted murder and about to go down for a successful one, he can't quite regret the desire.</p>
<p>He suspects that they feel differently. The heightened caution their body language projects is excessive for a criminal with his unimpressive resume. He's seen them look more relaxed under gunfire. Spencer marvels at the extensive number of torments that Cat has designed for his suffering, and how he's responsible for every single one of them.</p>
<p>Emily and JJ have known him for longer than any of the other profilers with the BAU. More importantly, he'd considered them his closest friends. They'll have no trouble exploiting his vulnerabilities; they're at the top of the list. The goal here isn't to just crack him into a confession. He's about to be shattered. It's merciless overkill, but the FBI plays to win.</p>
<p>Spencer thought that he had lost enough this morning. It was really only the warmup.</p>
<p>Emily has an audio recorder in her hand, and she activates it. This is just another game, he bleakly reminds himself, and they're all grandmasters here. There's only one wise opening move, so he makes it.</p>
<p>"I'm not talking to law enforcement without my lawyer present," he tells them, arms crossing in a futile protective measure.</p>
<p>They both nod insistently.</p>
<p>Emily is practiced and professional as she volleys. "That's perfectly within your rights, Dr. Reid. Ms. Duncan was contacted this morning, and she's already been very busy with your case. She'll be here tomorrow when we transfer you back into the BOP's custody for your interview with Special Investigative Services."</p>
<p>Spencer is going to need to find a new lawyer soon. Fiona will likely refuse to continue representing him based on a conflict of interests from her relationship with Emily. He reinforces his defensive position anyway.</p>
<p>"I don't have anything to say without her here." He keeps the pathetic internal wavering out of his voice as he thinks of things he'll never get to explain to them.</p>
<p>More adamant nodding follows his statement. JJ is staring at him with an unblinking intensity he finds incredibly unnerving. That's just how profiling feels from the other side, he understands. She's searching for an opening, finding her angle. Using him against himself. He deals with amateur attempts every single day.</p>
<p>She's clearly been crying, though. Spencer won't survive this. He doesn't want to be here. He should have found a way to make that marshal shock him into cardiac arrest—except that would be forfeiting, and Cat doesn't get to win by default.</p>
<p>"That's fine, Dr. Reid," Emily says, her dark eyes imploring. "There have been a variety of developments since this morning that you should be aware of, but there's no requirement for you to speak. Are you willing to listen to what we have to say?"</p>
<p>Her entreating expression is blatant manipulation. Spencer is moving himself into a bind when he could simply cancel this match, but he nods. He's fundamentally weak-willed, and he just wants to look at them a little longer for one last time. Emily glances at the voice recorder and he realizes that she needs him to be verbal. They can't trap him in his words otherwise.</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"Do you remember Matt Simmons? You met him in Mexico."</p>
<p>He sidelines his misery and forces himself to focus. They're not going with the Reid technique (the standard interrogation system developed in the 1950s by John E. Reid, no relation), or she'd be putting pressure on him right away. They know he's too familiar with it. Fine.</p>
<p>Spencer has a hazy recollection of a handsome face. He nods.</p>
<p>"He's a teammate of ours. Yesterday afternoon, his wife Kristy and their sons Jake and David were abducted." Emily gives him the ghost of a smile, but it seems genuine. "I'm happy to say that the Simmons family has been safely reunited. We were unable to capture the perpetrators, but it's being actively investigated."</p>
<p>She's starting with good news, though he'd already known that Cat wasn't lying. Sympathy for one's interrogators bodes very poorly for a suspect, but he's a lost cause here in a variety of ways. Discovering the truth would have been difficult for the team. Watching him flip his shit, rant about board games, and blunder blindly towards an answer while their colleague's family hung in the balance must have been extremely stressful. Emily's fingernails look like they've been recently bitten off.</p>
<p>"You might recall a corrections officer by the name of Lionel Wilkins from your time at Millburn Correctional Facility."</p>
<p>Spencer does. If they're going back that far, it will be to establish the facts about his first poisoning. Build up his MO.</p>
<p>"He also worked at Mount Pleasant during Ms. Adams' time there, and until today was an employee of the men's medium security prison here at Hazelton. Garcia was able to do some digging, and Wilkins was pulling under-the-table overtime shifts in the women's secure unit. He's currently in our custody undergoing questioning. We've already ascertained that he's been the one facilitating Adams' communication with the outside world."</p>
<p>It explains a lot, and it's positive information again. She's going down the path of least resistance for some reason. There's no need to build rapport here, and even she can't lull him into a false sense of security. He hasn't been safe in years. It could be the wrong tactic, but there's probably something larger at play.</p>
<p>JJ speaks up, and he can tell she's working hard to sound neutral. "Based on Wilkins' history, your cooperation in the Simmons abductions, and statements made by Cat Adams today, we've been permitted to reopen the Nadie Ramos case. It's likely we'll need to interview you again in the future."</p>
<p>Spencer doesn't think she's lying, and he bites back a laugh. It's a little too late, but he supposes that it's important for Nadie's family to see legitimate justice.</p>
<p>Emily is businesslike as she continues, though her fingers scrape at ragged cuticles. "Phone records indicate that Wilkins contacted Alan Dalton at his home in Colorado Springs early this morning. He committed suicide shortly afterwards."</p>
<p>Cat's blackmail must have been earth-shaking, and Dalton's first-hand knowledge of federal prison as a unit manager probably didn't entice him to stick around. It will make no meaningful difference, though his confession would have reflected better on Spencer at trial.</p>
<p>"Officer Brandon Hughes was taken in for questioning by the SIS at USP Florence and immediately rolled over. He's corroborated Adams' statement that Dalton required your involvement in moving their drugs. He told them that Dalton managed a great deal of the trafficking in Florence. According to Hughes, he was fully aware of each stage of the heroin's movement."</p>
<p>Instead of this slow meander towards the guillotine, Spencer would like to get the murder accusation out of the way. The walls are closing in now that the heroin's been brought up, but they're being disconcertingly delicate with him. Maybe they're just keeping him calm because they think he'll lose it on them, but Spencer would take advantage of his emotional volatility if he were the interrogator here. The more upset he gets, the less likely he'll control his mouth.</p>
<p>JJ takes the lead again, and her persistent stare is beginning to undo him. "Adams and her lawyer had a meeting with Special Investigative Services this afternoon. She won't talk about the Ramos case, but she's confirmed all the other statements she made to you this morning. She's declining to press charges over your physical altercation." She unsuccessfully buries her discomfort. "The BOP may still choose to pursue them, but your lawyer has been very aggressive in making them take your psychological state and their liability for it into account. We have too."</p>
<p>That's an overt attempt at minimization, a routine interrogation technique. She's trying to sound understanding by downplaying the motivation and consequences of his actions. As for the show of support, he wonders if she's misdirecting him away from the FBI's liability for leaving him unrestrained in that room after he'd made threats and thrown chairs.</p>
<p>When he looks over to Emily, she's biting a thumbnail. She meets his eyes purposefully, holding his gaze for a long moment. Her hand drops to her side and she straightens taller, setting her shoulders back. Here it finally comes.</p>
<p>"Ms. Adams has gone on the record confessing that nine months ago, she had Dalton cut a heroin shipment with Suboxone in an attempt to frame you for Paul Herzog's murder."</p>
<p>The hemispheres of Spencer's brain briefly cease to communicate, and when the connection resets he finds himself in the midst of an incoherent sputter. His hands fist into the mattress as he tries to comprehend what the fuck sort of move has just been made against him now.</p>
<p>All that buildup with positive news was to lead him to this. They're fucking with him. Beyond a few basic legal restrictions, the BAU is under no obligation to tell him the truth. His own lie during an investigation managed to lead him all the way to the cell they're in, and this fabrication is thematically identical. They're pretending to offer him the thing he wants most of all, just like he did to Cat.</p>
<p>Today has already taught him that the possibility of freedom is a trap. His foot just hasn't found the tripwire yet.</p>
<p>His traitor heart is bleating alternatives as he tries to analyze their worried, guileless faces. Spencer crushes it under a heavy heel. Emily was an undercover Interpol operative, and he knows painfully well that JJ can hide her microexpressions. He's already overtaxed his atrophied brain today. This is asking far too much of him, and they know it. He can't possibly decipher what the offensive maneuver is here.</p>
<p>In the subterranean depths of Spencer's skull, something furious begins to uncoil itself. He breathes in, counts to four, then exhales while counting to eight. Repeat. It never helps.</p>
<p>"I've had enough mind games for one day, agents," he says flatly, knowing he shouldn't speak at all. "If you have questions, why don't you ask?"</p>
<p>JJ presses a finger to her lips with wide eyes, and Emily's free hand makes repeated sideways chops through the air.</p>
<p>"We'll reinterview you about the Ramos case when Dr. Lewis is available, Dr. Reid," JJ says. She holds a palm out in front of her, motioning for him to stop.</p>
<p>Spencer watches the round of charades and continues treading his vulnerability into the dirt. If he stops, he'll misread their gestures out of chronic longing. Anger has begun to entwine him in its crushing chokehold again. Maybe that's just the noose around his neck, because as their strategy dawns on him he's impressed by the execution.</p>
<p>This is meant to look like a trap, but for them. They want him to think that Cat has set out the tightrope again, with the other side only short feet away. He's looking at their faces right now, in the room with him for the first time in forever. It's left his soft belly hopelessly exposed. If they were—implausibly, short-sightedly, recklessly—trying to meet him halfway by covering for him, they know he'd need to stop it. He couldn't watch them be set up as accessories to murder. Stepping out on the wire would only manage to drag the entire BAU down with him when Cat inevitably cut it.</p>
<p>They know him too well. He can't withstand this. It's an incredible zugzwang because if there's even an infinitesimal chance that it's real, he has only one option. Spencer is very familiar with the point in Connect Four where the only move left for his opponent to make sets him up for the win. Outside of children's games, he's always the one running out of choices.</p>
<p>He hates them and their heartlessly brilliant checkmate, and loves them far too much to do anything else.</p>
<p>"Would you like to take my statement now?" he asks. His voice is tight with bitterness.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Spencer II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It feels utterly surreal to have run out of lies.</p><p>Spencer had been certain that his supply was infinite, right up until Cat had revealed the extent of her surveillance and he was confronted by the odds that the critically high stakes of their game applied beyond the lives of her hostages. Faced with the ice-cold realization that he might not be entirely finished with a career spent permanently locking killers behind bars, he'd plunged into a state of shock so severe it had bordered on dissociation. Despite the constant observation surrounding any federal inmate, he'd been painstakingly careful to ensure no one would ever see him for what he really was. As he'd stared into Cat's mocking eyes, his heart racing like it had right off the bus on his first terrifying day at Millburn, the hubris of his assurance that the truth could remain hidden had become as evident as her confidence in his guilt.</p><p>Spencer can't recall the last time he'd been as honest as he was today, and his deteriorated hippocampus isn't to blame for the deficit in his memory. Like everything else, Cat was right about his predilection for deception. Perhaps necessity made him a liar in his boyhood, but it's become a personal dependency he's more reliant on than opiates.</p><p>It began with the prying interference of concerned teachers, the intrusive questioning of social services, and the formidable effort he'd thrown into evading any attempts to steal him away from his mother. It might have ended there if it hadn't been for his damning fascination with stage magic. The line between an illusionist and a con artist is a thin one, and it's proven to be another tightrope he lacks any coordination to traverse.</p><p>A magician never reveals his secrets, but Spencer's have all been forced out into the open. His time in Florence has been a non-stop demonstration of trickery based on his considerable knowledge of psychology, and he's run himself ragged using every scrap of his firsthand experience with both criminals and law enforcement to direct the performance. Where intellect has failed him, his instances of physical improvisation have admittedly lacked the same degree of nuance. On the whole, juggling knives would have been less demanding, and it probably would have resulted in fewer scars.</p><p>Now that the show's finally over, it's obvious he'd been set up for failure from the start. Sleights of hand fall flat if the audience is told where to look, and he negotiates traps far too poorly to succeed as an escape artist. Cat has left Spencer so transparent that a prosecutor should have no trouble managing a vanishing act with him.</p><p>Ben Williamson is a mirage conjured out of a few unavoidable personal quirks and a comprehensive selection of careful lies. The Spencer Reid he's been flourishing at everyone outside of Florence's electrified fences is a counterfeit that's held up remarkably well to scrutiny, but only at a distance. When Uncle Spence is smiling at Henry's stories on the phone as he picks scabs from his knuckles, or while Ben's hustling naive fish out of their commissary funds with perfect plays of Connect Four, they feel so real he sometimes swindles himself into forgetting that he's not actually either one of them.</p><p>He used to want nothing more than to be Spencer again. Inundated by the overwhelming turbulence of Ben's doubtful survival, he'd spent years clinging to the remembrance of his prior self like a liferaft. He was still that man, he swore, even in the violent wake of choices he struggled to reconcile with his previous identity. Spencer pointedly refused to consider the ship of Theseus as he reconstructed himself piece by piece into someone who might outlive his sentence. Though his moral compass was reeling wildly, he was going to navigate the way back home and regain whatever he'd discarded. Eventually the worst of it would fade like bruises and absent memories, or dissipate like the orange dye from diluted Suboxone. He would do anything it took to make it out alive, and then he'd shake off the effects of Colorado like the tail end of a withdrawal to emerge clean on the other side. Spencer frequently and unconvincingly lied to himself that none of it was truly his doing. He was just acting.</p><p>He was acting, but as Cat so effectively reminded him, all of his actions had consequences. In the hollow aftermath of his very worst decision, he'd been forced to concede that every letter sent in the mail and each number he'd dialed were counts of identity theft being added to his swiftly expanding rap sheet. Some lying murderer was writing Hank Morgan bedtime stories and laughing over the phone as Penelope talked smack about Luke at twenty-one cents per minute. The words all felt genuine as he was forming them, but he was fraudulently impersonating yet another victim from the collateral damage of his heinous choices. Paul Herzog had died within hours of using the tampered heroin; Spencer had selected to poison himself slowly and cumulatively over the course of years until the corruption was irreversible.</p><p>Whoever he's become, he continued wanting to go home to steal back everything from his former life still available to him. He wanted it more than anything else the world could ever offer, even though he knew it would be a neverending pantomime. He'd be trying to hoodwink an audience a thousand times more perceptive than the keenest criminal minds he'd exhausted himself misleading in Florence. They'd notice the difference between the innocent man who'd entered prison and the worthless facsimile that returned to them. Given enough time, there's no doubt the act would have fallen apart. Imagining just one more dinner night at Rossi's or a single afternoon spent with his godsons, he'll never cast aside his conviction that the attempt would have been worthwhile anyway.</p><p>It isn't the only conviction that's going to end up lasting his whole life. First degree murder is considerably less pleasant to envision.</p><p>Take all of Spencer's lies away, and anything left over is what Cat decided he was allowed to keep. As much as it hurts, JJ and Emily aren't here to be purposefully cruel. They've lost their friend, and now they're handling the difficult task of burying his grisly remains. They always do their job thoroughly, and he's already acknowledged that the coffin should have been nailed shut a long time ago.</p><p>Emily displays an impressive capacity for facial motor control after he makes his offer to confess. What looks like shock gives way to the semblance of consternation before finally arriving at a degree of sternness that could only be achieved through the purposeful emulation of Aaron Hotchner. It makes him want to shrink in on himself like he's twenty-four and can't pass his marksmanship exam. His compulsion for deception is too strong, so he squares his shoulders and confrontationally juts his chin out towards her instead.</p><p>JJ is shaking her head emphatically at him, wide-eyed with dismay. Spencer has completely lost his capacity for behavioural analysis. All of this is so goddamn bewildering he wonders if he somehow sustained undetected head trauma when he was tased to the ground. He won't indulge in the fantasy they're still weaving for him, and he always avoids speculation about early-onset dementia.</p><p>"Mr. Reid," Emily says, voice forceful as her hand makes enigmatic gestures towards the audio recorder, "I can have an agent take a victim impact statement from you after I've finished speaking."</p><p>Mister. That's <em>fine</em>. He's not that type of doctor, but he's absolutely failed to uphold the Hippocratic principle to do no harm. He'll never hear the name again after he's taken back to Colorado anyway. Whoever the hell he's supposed to be, he tries to let it go.</p><p>He's fucking terrible at letting things go. He wouldn't be in this position if he could have accepted what was happening to his mother. If he'd just submitted to Herzog's brutal games and their inevitable outcome, he'd have eventually landed himself back in ad seg. His conscience might not have been totally clean by then, but it would have grown vacant as his mind slipped away. If Spencer had enough backbone to value the bare minimum of morality over the avoidance of his own mortality, he wouldn't have needed to endure today's continuing ordeal at all.</p><p>He's sure he'll have all sorts of regrets over his inability to let go of what Cat's made out of him. It won't be enough to stop him from what he's going to do to her.</p><p>"Ask me or get out," he demands of Emily. Her affection ranks high on the list of things he's wretchedly clung to far beyond any reasonable expiration date. "I'm not interested in playing games with you. I'll talk to the SIS tomorrow."</p><p>They can't be here anymore. He's witnessed shankings that looked gentler than what this inscrutably roundabout interrogation is doing to his insides. If they aren't going to let him spill his guts in a straightforward manner, they have to leave. Spencer won't allow himself to snap on them. He starts counting backwards from the thousandth decimal of the Euler number while simultaneously attempting to visualize his penultimate chess match with Gideon, straining against destructive impulses that have no place among his current company.</p><p>Emily is still manifesting the full and unyielding authority of an FBI unit chief as she opens her mouth to respond, which is exactly when the disruptive ringtone of her phone shrills at an obnoxious volume for such a confined space. She deflates back into a human being with visible relief, hand slipping into the pocket of her jacket where the noisy device resides.</p><p>"I'm sorry," she says, eying him unapologetically, "but this is urgent and I need to step outside for a few minutes. We'll finish this conversation when I get back."</p><p>It's still in her pocket; she hasn't even pulled the phone out to check the screen. The look she's giving him is one he struggles to interpret. He's definitely being assessed, and she's exhibiting a notable degree of caution. There's something plaintive to the expression, though, and a hint of what he might describe as conspiratorial. His inability to decipher any objective behind it is utterly maddening.</p><p>Emily turns to share the type of sustained eye contact with JJ that's an entire conversation, but it's in a language he's lost the skill to translate. The audio recorder clicks off in her hand as she looks back over at him.</p><p>"Ten minutes," she says meaningfully, though he has no fucking idea what the meaning of any of this is.</p><p>She finally removes the phone from her pocket. Then she simply walks out into the hall, leaving the heavy steel door only slightly ajar behind her as she makes her exit from the cell.</p><p>JJ is watching him with her big blue eyes, and she's just as beautiful as always. There's limited evidence that age has touched her, though she's a bit rumpled from a long day of work. Her hair is unkempt enough to indicate that she's had her head in her hands more than a few times today and that she's been too busy to straighten herself out.</p><p>Spencer rages against the possibility she's developed a habit of being left unarmed and alone with unrestrained violent felons. He has strong opinions over the unnecessary danger Emily has left JJ in with this complete breach in security protocol. It doesn't matter that it's an element of their very successful strategy to confound him. He'd nearly murdered a woman this morning using only his hands, and procedure demands that he should be cuffed and in the presence of another agent.</p><p>JJ takes a brave step closer to him, even though she's been afraid of feral dogs since the Hankel barn.</p><p>"Spence," she begins hesitantly, "what are you doing?"</p><p>That's an incredible question given the astounding recklessness she's demonstrating. Her choice to still use that diminutive pet name makes him want to scream like a howler monkey. Stay calm, he reminds himself, but he can't recall the move he'd made with the rook on d7, and his progress with <em>e</em> has nearly crawled to a stop after a mere sixty-three digits.</p><p>She goes on when it becomes obvious he lacks an answer to her riddle.  "Listen to me. You have the right to remain silent—"</p><p>"Oh," he interjects, fuming, "you should know I don't need to be Mirandized. Howes versus Fields, 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that investigators don't have to read inmates their rights during interrogations for crimes unrelated to their incarceration. Are you wearing a wire?"</p><p>That call was staged so that Emily and her audio recorder would leave the room, and this is the most convoluted setup he's ever encountered. He wonders who came up with it and how they knew it would be so effective against him. Tara, maybe.</p><p>"Howes versus Fields only applies when there's no change to an inmate's custody," JJ says very slowly, frowning deeply in realization of something.</p><p>Spencer hates being mistaken almost as much as he hates being the cause of JJ's visible unhappiness. He should have known that. His custodial chain delivered him from the hands of the BOP to the US Marshals Service, and right now he belongs to the FBI again. He waits for her to keep reading him his rights, but she just keeps staring. JJ is trying very hard to understand something about him, and he doubts any insight she has will be pleasant for either of them.</p><p>Spencer can do it himself. "Anything I say can be used against me in a court of—"</p><p>"I'm not wired and I'm not trying to interrogate you. God," she groans, running an agitated hand through her hair. She looks around the cell like she'll find the words she's searching for. "Please stop talking. You are in so much trouble right now, and I need you to trust me and listen."</p><p>JJ has a better poker face than him. She's probably the strongest liar in the room, which is impressive considering how infrequently she practices the skill. JJ knows from experience that he's blindest to her manipulation when he's emotional, and she knows what he's done.</p><p>"Get out," he says, spiralling into a panic from internal conflict over her continued presence and a burgeoning sense of uncertainty. His heart rate hits the ceiling of zone four as his brain stutters hopelessly over a gap where the nine hundred and sixth decimal of the Euler number ought to reside.</p><p>She ignores him and steps closer, palms held out placatingly. "Emily is recording this because the BAU is going to be reviewed for misconduct after everything that happened this morning, and we need to avoid showing bias towards you. Officially, we're just here to go over the outcome of the Simmons abductions and talk about reopening the Ramos case. Special Investigative Services is handling the internal issues apart from Wilkins."</p><p>She's so close he could touch her with the simple extension of an arm. Spencer thinks that if this were real, the little phone call scheme might be too flimsy to keep from implicating them in wrongdoing. They could lose their jobs, or much worse. Overwhelmed by JJ's proximity, a little animal noise of weakness weasels its way out of his chest.</p><p>"You're going to meet with your lawyer tomorrow and then you're going to sit down with the SIS, and you aren't going to say a single word unless Fiona tells you to," she presses him. "Just remain silent. The BOP has an unbelievable mess on their hands, and they've already been given a clean solution."</p><p>He can't read her at all, and he doubts she'll let him track her pulse given what that led to with Cat. This is another guessing game with an opponent who knows him too well.</p><p>"Even if they do press charges against you, we could beat this at trial. There isn't any direct evidence, and now there's reasonable doubt. She had Dalton kill him, Spencer."</p><p>That last statement is an outright lie. There's nothing subtle about it. She breaks eye contact and uses both hands to gesture when she says it, but the motion comes too late for the words.</p><p>She could be lying poorly on purpose to distract him from all the invisible deceit.</p><p>It's the way she looks when she says <em>we</em> that cracks Spencer like a month in ad seg. Despite the throbbing protestation of his broken nose, he buries his face in his hands. Something he's never managed to kill is still squeaking determinedly from beneath his metaphorical foot. He stops grinding his heel down, but his trampled heart only aches harder for it. This is far worse than his misinterpretation of the situation.</p><p>"You shouldn't be here," he tells her, horrified.</p><p>If this is real, then the BAU is walking right into a minefield. The damage from his actions is still radiating outwards. Fueled by both his enormous fears for the people he loves and the scope of his hatred for Cat Adams, his temper reaches combustion.</p><p>Strangulation was an unbelievably stupid approach in the short amount of time he'd had available after the game ended. Spencer could have succeeded if he'd gone with blunt force trauma. At the moment, recognizing the danger his ineptitude has placed JJ in, he's almost overcome by the desire to break something.</p><p>He works hard to suffocate it, pressing his palms into his eyes until he sees starfields. He needs to figure out exactly what Cat is planning, JJ has to see reason, and there's nothing in the cell for him to break. He tries as unemotional an approach as he can with his mind smoldering like a brushfire.</p><p>"JJ, this is a trap. Cat's trying to make you my accessory, and you can't be talking to me like this. You need to take my confession, give it to the SIS, and then you're never going to contact me again. She'll leave all of you alone if you stay away—"</p><p>The mattress depresses under the weight of another body. Spencer tears his hands off his face, blinking away the glimmering traces of phosphenes from his vision. JJ is sitting right next to him through the dying sparks.</p><p>Cat has brought her close only because the decision facing him requires the creation of more distance than ever. He shuffles a sideway retreat towards the corner, though it only opens up a few additional inches of space between them.</p><p>"That's never going to happen. She can't do anything to me," JJ says, her tone as inflexible as the cell's brick walls. "This is exactly how she's hoping you'll respond. We've handed over all the evidence from this morning to the SIS, and Adams gave them the confession with her lawyer present. We weren't involved at all, we only watched it through the mirror. She can't claim that we coerced her. She confessed because she had Dalton do it."</p><p>Spencer had forgotten the way that JJ gets when she's determined about something. He's become so fucking forgetful. His faulty recollections have transformed her into someone very soft, but right now she's staring him down in a way that would inevitably result in a fistfight back in Florence.</p><p>JJ is excellent at hand-to-hand combat and he might still lose in that scenario, but it doesn't mean that he can back down. Some things are much too important.</p><p>"I'm a murderer," he tells her bluntly. It's the first time he's spoken the words out loud, but the honesty doesn't provide any sort of catharsis. The statement is at total odds with the concept of his release. He hopes it might be enough to free JJ from this unfolding disaster.</p><p>Cornered as he is, he can't quite dodge the approach of her hand when it darts towards him. She takes hold of his shoulder, gripping it with an unpleasant degree of pressure. It's nothing at all like Cat's gentle touches, but he thinks the unfamiliar sensation warming the periphery of his dysphoric mind might be from oxytocin released by the contact anyway.</p><p>"You were convicted of manslaughter, and I'm going to prove that you were set up. You," JJ says vehemently, shaking his arm with her sharp nails digging into his deltoid, "are <em>never</em> going to say that again."</p><p>"The SIS is going to watch your tape from this morning, and—"</p><p>"They're going to see Cat Adams say that she framed you for murder right at the start. It's going to become pretty clear you were set up the first time, especially now that the FBI is reopening your case. They're going to see all the things she did to you that the BOP are legally responsible for through their unbelievable neglect."</p><p>It's laughable to think that the Bureau of Prisons has any real concerns about neglecting their responsibilities towards inmates, but Spencer's insight into the criminal justice system has somewhat diverged from JJ's. It won't bother the SIS beyond what happens to Hughes and Wilkins, and it won't change how they look at him.</p><p>"Another thing they'll watch is the moment you realized Cat was trying to frame you <em>again</em>. You denied it. You told her she did it, and then you had a breakdown because of the terrible effect this has had on your mental health." JJ takes a deep breath. "You're very seriously ill, Spence."</p><p>She means it, and she pities him. Her hand eases its grasp on his shoulder to become something she intends to be more comforting.</p><p>He's abundantly aware of how fucked up he is, but he can't blame any of his actions on it. The moment Spencer chose to have victims is the point where he ceased to be one. They both know that the mentally ill are overwhelmingly the targets of violence rather than its perpetrators, and he's made his most deplorable choices with a sound mind and malicious intent.</p><p>He's fooled JJ too well, and she's in denial about who she's sitting alongside. The magic trick was more successful than he'd thought. For all the endless staring she's doing, she needs to peer a little closer before the illusion disintegrates.</p><p>He pities her right back. Her attachment to him guarantees her a world of disappointments. He can't protect her from it any more than he could stop Luis Delgado from bleeding out on a laundry room floor. Ben walks away from those sorts of things like he doesn't even see them. He never defends anyone he doesn't owe.</p><p>Spencer owes JJ a lot, and he'll protect her from Cat. He won't take his time fucking around for the satisfaction of revenge. He'll find a way to kill her, and soon.</p><p>"When they watch that tape, they might even see you about to make a false confession because you thought that three people would die if you didn't," JJ continues softly. "You look suspicious, but you never made any direct remarks. All you need is reasonable doubt, and it's there with an admission on the record from Adams."</p><p>"She'll retract it."</p><p>"You know the statistics on how well recanting a confession goes."</p><p>He can't focus on goddamn statistics right now. She's talking to him with the same calming tone she uses to get unsubs off of a ledge, and it incenses him. None of this is even relevant. What matters is the new game Cat is playing and how to take his turn.</p><p>"I need to talk to her again," Spencer tries. Sometimes the direct approach is best.</p><p>JJ doesn't quite veil her expression, and it's the same one he always used to see people give his mother when she was having a bad episode. Her hand slips down his arm to trap his own where it rests on the mattress, and she insistently weaves her fingers into the gaps between his. He wonders what the bruising looks like on Cat's neck and why JJ is willing to touch him at all.</p><p>"You're not going to talk to her, Spence."</p><p>"You can keep me cuffed—"</p><p>"No. You aren't ever going to see her again," JJ says firmly.</p><p>It's not really any different than all the other voices that inflict their dominance over him every single day, more uncompromising than steel bars and sharper than concertina wire. Spencer hates it, and he'll find a solution to get around whatever authorities stand in his way.</p><p>"It doesn't matter what Cat is trying to do," she continues, trying and completely failing to pacify him. "What matters is how you're going to handle it."</p><p>"She's not doing this for no fucking reason! She <em>plans</em>, JJ. This is a trap, she has something on me, and she—I will ruin your life! You'll go to prison. What, you want to..." he stammers, overwhelmed as he tries to find a way to reach her, "share fucking bunkbeds with Emily? It's another game. She's not going to take the fall for this and let me just walk away."</p><p>Things snap into place with the jarring force of a dislocated joint being reset, and he understands exactly what Cat is doing. He can't communicate with her, and if he makes an accusation then maybe he'll go free?</p><p>She's very funny. A round of applause for another incredible joke at his expense.</p><p>"Son of a bitch. This is the Prisoner's Dilemma."</p><p>He collapses backwards to knock his head against the cool surface of the wall behind him. Like everything else she does, it's all fucked up. The outline of it is there, though, and her intent is obvious. Some rotten piece of him can't help but admire how consistently amazing she is at this. His assertion that he could keep up with her was mostly bravado in the heat of the moment; he is so continually outmaneuvered.</p><p>"That's a game?" JJ asks, her hand tightening over his.</p><p>"Yeah. Probably the most analyzed one in the history of modern game theory."</p><p>The ramifications of the dilemma extend into the realms of ethics, evolutionary biology, political and social sciences, economics, and beyond. Spencer once read a paper where quantum physics had been applied to the game with fascinating results.</p><p>"Don't play." It's somewhere between a command and a plea.</p><p>"Non-action in an action in this game," he huffs, reciting Cat's words from this morning. "Exercising the right to remain silent is a move in the Prisoner's Dilemma. You don't know the rules?"</p><p>She shakes her head.</p><p>"Two accomplices are brought in under suspicion for a crime they've committed together, taken into separate interrogation rooms where they can't communicate," he explains.</p><p>Herzog's murder really was the result of their combined efforts. It's unnatural to have to consider Cat as his partner rather than strictly as his adversary, but the Prisoner's Dilemma is not a zero sum game.</p><p>"The authorities offer them both a chance to betray each other, but they can refuse to talk. The sentence is much shorter if they both stay silent than if they both accuse one another. If only one of them points the finger, he walks free and the other prisoner serves the longest sentence available in the game."</p><p>For a bizarre moment it almost feels like a lifetime ago, but JJ is paying too much attention to one of his niche interests for it to be accurate. On average, it would only take a little over fourteen words before her eyes rolled away.</p><p>"She's made an accusation against herself, and she's never getting out of prison," JJ states obviously, like he's lost enough IQ points to have missed those facts. "There's no range of sentences here, Spence. You leave or you don't."</p><p>"It's more about the theme than the details. The game is a decision-making paradox about cooperation and opportunism. It's a tragedy that illustrates the Hobbesian state of nature, actually—" He cuts himself off from an irrelevant philosophical tangent. "Two purely rational self-interested players will always choose to mistrust and accuse each other because it offers the highest reward and avoids the worst punishment. Because of it, they always end up with a worse payoff than if they'd chosen to remain silent. The game's dominant strategy equilibrium results in a deficient outcome that nobody actually prefers."</p><p>It's a mockery designed to dangle what he wants in his face before she snatches it away again. Cat is giving Spencer the same two options that the Prisoner's Dilemma offers: defect or cooperate. In his case, he can accuse her and hope to go free, or compromise with her by giving his own confession. The first choice is a mirage, and the second one keeps an entire unit of the FBI from being dragged into an inferno. Cat's confession is just to set the game up. The real move will be when she reveals whatever cards she's actually holding.</p><p>Precedent indicates that he always chooses the application of very selfish logic when faced with a dilemma, even if the outcome is violence and murder. He wouldn't be here otherwise. This time, he's going to have to pick the game's irrational option. Cat's strong-arming him into cooperating.</p><p>"It's an ultimatum. She's telling me what the punishment will be if I try to walk away from this. She knew you were watching her confess and that you'd try to help me. She's threatening you."</p><p>His attempt to kill her probably made it evident that he wants to avoid playing again. Cat was somehow aware that he still had something to lose even after he'd thought it was gone. If he tries to back out of what he promised her, she's making it clear that she'll destroy them.</p><p>JJ sidles closer, and he's out of room to retreat. She presses her shoulder against his, scooping his hand up with both of hers to hold it in her lap. It's very distracting to have her invading his personal space when the game he's playing requires his full attention.</p><p>"She's not ever going to be able to do anything like this again. You don't need to be afraid."</p><p>She's so wrong. Perpetual terror is a prerequisite for Spencer's survival, but fearing Cat is a much more dire necessity.</p><p>"Cat makes plans for every outcome. She's probably already set it up. She reads all my letters, JJ, so she has your address. It could be Will, Henry and Michael this time, and I almost guessed the wrong answer today."</p><p>He'd come close to having so much more blood on his hands. Cat only put the Simmons family in that position because of him, and he'd barely managed to get them out of it. If she hadn't made her tiny slip-up over a board game, they'd be dead. She's much too astute to make the same type of mistake twice.</p><p>"She knew you'd get paranoid and overthink this. Maybe she's making it look like the Prisoner's Dilemma, but it's not," JJ insists. "She's given you a simple choice and she's hoping you'll pick the wrong answer. She wants you to decide to confess so it will be your fault that you're here. You can't say a word to the SIS, Spencer."</p><p>He does need to box himself in with his own actions for Cat to be satisfied, but he did that when he killed a man. It's already his fault that he's here. JJ is so stubborn, and he and Cat will tear her life apart. Spencer practices his pointless breathing exercises before he replies.</p><p>"It might look like the best option is to accuse the other player, but the consequences end up being worse. She's telling me I have to cooperate—"</p><p>"You want to cooperate with Cat Adams? Listen to yourself," she urges. "You're not well. This isn't a game, and you need help."</p><p>"Of course this is a game! Everything I do with her is a game!" He's becoming shrill in a traditionally unmasculine way that's not safe in Florence, but he can't understand why she doesn't see what's happening.</p><p>She gives his hand a squeeze, leaning further into him for a close inspection. She knows that he's awkward about touch and she's using the contact to unsettle him, though he doesn't want her to stop. He can see her strategizing as she searches him for something specific. JJ is exceptionally skilled, but she doesn't have the type of deft intuition that Cat used against him so masterfully. This is work rather than pleasure for her.</p><p>"I told you about the Netflix show about chess that I watched because it made me think of you, right? This is just a gambit, Spence. A really big one. If you don't play into it, she can't do anything. She's making a sacrifice hoping that you'll choose her."</p><p>It's a nice metaphor, but JJ doesn't really understand chess. Even when they're declined, gambits are generally advantageous to the player making them. Gideon liked to say that the best way to refute a gambit was to accept it. Off the top of Spencer's head, there are only a few that are generally advisable for Black to avoid.</p><p>At the highest level of competition, Queen's Gambit Declined is predominantly considered the optimal approach. It gives him pause.</p><p>He's not playing chess, though. He has a Prisoner's Dilemma.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Look.  Listen.  I really tried to keep this as one chapter, but the word count keeps multiplying.  I'm pretty sure there's one more Spencer chapter to go after this, but I may be trapped inside of some sort of infinite loop now. </p><p>I hope you enjoyed the hand-holding, because I'm probably going to send the entire BAU to jail next chapter.  Love you guys!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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